Develop Reference

Image as background in menu item

As said in the question.
What I currently have:
Desired output:
On each column there would be a background image. I'm going to remove the text and just fill items with images. Is this possible? If yes, do I need different resolutions for background images?
Activity_main_drawer.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
tools:showIn="navigation_view">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_ITEM1"
android:title="#string/ITEM1"
/>
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_ITEM2"
android:title="#string/ITEM2" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_ITEM3"
android:title="#string/ITEM3" />
</group>
</menu>

Depending on what exactly you are looking to do, you could try add an icon:
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_ITEM1"
android:icon="#drawable/item1_image"
android:title="#string/ITEM1" />
EDIT / UPDATE: to set the 'background image' of a menu entry, try:
<com.google.android.material.navigation.NavigationView
android:id="#+id/nav_view"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
app:itemBackground="#drawable/YOUR_DRAWABLE_HERE". <<<<<<<<<
app:headerLayout="#layout/nav_header_home"
app:menu="#menu/activity_home_drawer" />
Unfortunately, this sets the same image for each entry - but, it is a good starting point. Will update if I see a way of customising each entry.
LAST UPDATE, This allows you to define a unique background for each entry. Its not perfect, but maybe you can tweak it to work:
include 'app' in your xml for your menu:
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
Then, make a simple layout file that has an image:
<FrameLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src="#drawable/announce"/>
</FrameLayout>
In menu, update the item to point to the layout file you made above
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_gallery"
android:title=""
app:actionLayout="#layout/test" /> <<<<< HERE
Source: found some methods and ideas here: https://stablekernel.com/article/using-custom-views-as-menu-items/

How to use images as icons in bottom navigation view [Android]

I am trying to add bottom navigation view like below:
But it is coming like below:
I tried all the options, but I don't seem to quite get through, everything I do is only changing the color but I am not able to quite achieve what I want to.
Code below
<com.google.android.material.bottomnavigation.BottomNavigationView
android:id="#+id/action_search"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="45dp"
android:layout_gravity="start"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:menu="#menu/navigation_menu"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="8dp"
android:background="#232323"
app:itemTextColor="#color/PrimaryText"
app:itemIconTint="#null"/>
Navigation Menu :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:id="#+id/action_add_expense"
android:icon="#drawable/addincome"
android:title="Add Income" />
<item android:id="#+id/action_add_income"
android:icon="#drawable/addexpense"
android:title="Add Expense" />
</menu>

set the Icon TintList to null programatically and you will be able to show your icons without any tint.
bottomNavigationView.setItemIconTintList(null);

Bottom Navigation Icons are Cropped Android

I'm assembling an app with a Botton navigation bar in Android with Android Studio. With two icons it looked fine, but when I added four, the icons look cropped. I can't find any other error like this. Any suggestions are welcomed.
Cropped icons bottom nav 4 options
Here is the code for the Bottom Navigation (bottom_navigation.xml)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item
android:id="#+id/action_lines"
android:enabled="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_lines_off"
android:title="Lines"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
<item
android:id="#+id/action_contacts"
android:enabled="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_contacts_off"
android:title="Contacts"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
<item
android:id="#+id/action_conversations"
android:enabled="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_conversations_off"
android:title="Conversations"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
<item
android:id="#+id/action_settings"
android:enabled="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_settings_off"
android:title="Settings"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
</menu>
In my activity.xml I call the bottom menu like this:
<android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView
android:id="#+id/bottomNavigation"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
app:itemIconTint="#drawable/bnv_tab_item_foreground"
app:itemTextColor="#drawable/bnv_tab_item_foreground"
app:menu="#menu/bottom_navigation" />
Question Update:
I tried changing
app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
for
app:showAsAction="always"
And it doesn't solve the problem. There is no change to the issue. And it does not show the tag in every icon as it should. Only on the selected one.
One way of solving it is adding a Theme to the bottom navigation call in activity, like this:
android:theme="?attr/toolbarNavigationButtonStyle"
I have no clue why it works, but it solves the issue apparently in lots of devices exept in Samsung Galaxy Note 8
Here is "bnv_tab_item_foreground"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_checked="true" android:color="#color/colorAccent" />
<item android:color="#android:color/darker_gray" />
</selector>

Try changing a value for the property below:-
app:showAsAction="always"
and if still, your problem persists, please provide the file
"bnv_tab_item_foreground"

Use Support Library 28. Then, just add app:labelVisibilityMode="labeled" to your BottomNavigationView XML declaration.
Hope this helps

I believe this is being caused by your layout not fitting into the System window, and you can easily fix this by going to the Layout you have the Bottom Navigation and at the root layout add android:fitsSystemWindows="true" just like I did below
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:fitsSystemWindows="true">
<!--things come here -->
</RelativeLayout>

android navigation drawer item without icon, display text only

I want to add a menu item entry without icon to navigation drawer in my android app.
I have checked the samples at NavigationDrawer
and read through the tutorial at Android Developer training article.
I edited the sample menu to add new menu items "My Text 1" and "My Text 2" as per this xml file following this image:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_camera"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_camera"
android:title="Import" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_gallery"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_gallery"
android:title="Gallery" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_slideshow"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_slideshow"
android:title="Slideshow" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_manage"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_manage"
android:title="Tools" />
<item
android:id="#+id/example"
android:title="My Text 1" />
</group>
<item android:title="Communicate">
<menu>
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_share"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_share"
android:title="Share" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_send"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_send"
android:title="Send" />
<item
android:id="#+id/sample"
android:title="My Text 2" />
</menu>
</item>
</menu>
If i remove the two lines declaring icons for "Share" and "Send", then "My Text 2" gets aligned to the left as shown in this image
But i want to keep the icons of other items, and just add a text item, i hope there is some parameter that allows no icon menu item in groups.
I tried using android_icon="#android/color:transparent", but that doesn't/can't solve the problem either.
I dont want to provide any icons for my menu items, but i expect that text to align to the left. Is that achievable? If yes, how?

No custom layout here.
You have to create a second group with an ID (even dummy) then in this group put all the items without any icon.
Note: every time the group ID changes Android adds a separator line.
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
tools:showIn="navigation_view">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_home"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_dummy1"
android:title="#string/nav_menu_home"/>
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_profile"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_dummy2"
android:title="#string/nav_menu_profile"/>
</group>
<group android:id="#+id/dummy">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_info"
android:title="#string/nav_menu_info"/>
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_settings"
android:title="#string/nav_menu_settings"/>
</group>

Create your custom layout for the Navigation Drawer and do whatever you want with that:
This is my xml file for custom design of drawer layout-
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
tools:context=".HomeActivity">
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
android:id="#+id/drawer_layout"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<!-- The main content view -->
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
<include
android:id="#+id/rl_topbar"
layout="#layout/inflate_topbar" />
<FrameLayout
android:id="#+id/fl_content_frame"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_below="#id/rl_topbar" />
</LinearLayout>
<!-- The navigation drawer -->
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/ll_navbar_container"
android:layout_width="#dimen/navbar_width"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="right"
android:background="#color/color_255_255_255"
android:orientation="vertical">
<!--This is my custom layout how I want, you can design as you want and include it-->
<include
android:id="#+id/ll_navbar"
layout="#layout/inflate_navbar" />
</LinearLayout>
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>
<!--Add progress bar-->
<!--Add other views-->
</RelativeLayout>
Now in your activity of this xml file take the references of views and make click events or other changes easily.

A simple alternative would be to use a custom layout instead of a menu.
It'll be a simple change. Simply, you can just create a custom layout as you would in any other layout but instead of indicating the corresponding menu within the NavigationView, instead of using the app:menu="#menu/drawer_view" attribute.
You can simply follow the layout structure of in your Activity.
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
<RelativeLayout/>
<LinearLayout/>
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
There's no fundamental difference between the structure of the tutorial and that of this layout except, I've chosen to use a LinearLayout instead of a menu resource for the side menu (obviously the rootlayout for the side view will be at your discretion but for your use-case LinearLayout fits best.).
An Example
Activity_main.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:background="#color/colorAccent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:id="#+id/drawer_layout"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:fitsSystemWindows="true">
<include layout="#layout/content_activity_main"/>
<include layout="#layout/layout_side_view"/>
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
You'll notice in this layout that there are two include statements in place of the layouts before as shown in the structure before. One for the actual content of the activity and one for the side view. I'll show you an example of your requested use case layout below:
layout_side_view.xml
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:background="#color/white"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="50dp">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/with_icon"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:textColor="#color/black"
android:drawableLeft="#drawable/icon"
android:drawableStart="#drawable/icon"
android:drawablePadding="15dp"
android:gravity="start|center_vertical"
android:text="TextView 1"/>
</LinearLayout>
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:background="#color/white"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="50dp">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/without_icon"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:textColor="#color/black"
android:gravity="start|center_vertical"
android:text="Text View 2"/>
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>
You can then simply customize your layout and where you want a TextView with an icon on the left use the DrawableLeft | DrawableStart attribute, and if you don't want an icon simply just don't use it.
I hope this helps.
Note:
I would look into what the DrawerLayout does and why it is structured that way, the content goes below the menu for what reason? Looking into these things helps you develop an understanding where you can customize layout structures to your liking.

Custom tab indicator view

I want to reproduce this tab indicator structure (screen is from nova launcher): a dropdown menu and an arrow in the right bottom corner.
I have no problem about code but i can't reproduce this appearance.
I tried this:
mBar.addTab(mBar.newTab().setText(ctx.getString(R.string.tab_actions)).setTabListener(this).setCustomView(R.layout.navigation_spinner));
where mBar is sherlock support actionBar.
This is my layout:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" android:layout_margin="-10dp"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical">
<Button android:id="#+id/button1" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" android:text="Button" />
</LinearLayout>
and this is my result:
The problem is that the button in the central tab doesn't fill the tab indicator. How can i set a custom view that perfectly fill the indicator without margin or padding? Or i have to approach this in a different way to have the a result like the firs screen? Thanks in advice

What you are trying to do is really complicated, and will be hard to achieve.
If you want drop down menus you can try those :
menu/options.xml:
<item
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_sort"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom">
<menu>
<item
android:id="#+id/menuSortNewest"
android:title="Sort by newest" />
<item
android:id="#+id/menuSortRating"
android:title="Sort by rating" />
</menu>
</item>
Second option:
menu/options.xml:
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item
android:id="#+id/menuSort"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
android:actionLayout="#layout/action_sort" />
</menu>
layout/action_sort.xml:
<Spinner xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/ic_menu_refresh"
android:entries="#array/order" />
Docs for menu resources - http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/menu-resource.html