Develop Reference

Remove extra background color rectangle from overflow menu enter/exit animations?

When I open the overflow menu in my application, I see a solid rectangle of the menu background color displayed behind the menu itself throughout the enter/exit animations. Here's an animation showing this (slowed to 75% speed):
The presence of this extraneous colored rectangle spoils the nice enter/exit animations! How can I remove it while retaining all other Toolbar styling?
Research
I've read a bunch of answers on Toolbar styling on SO, and Chris Banes' own posts on the subject. It seems that usage of the style/theme tags on a per-View basis has changed in the past couple years, which has made it difficult to find definitive information anywhere.
I've reproduced this using versions 22.1.0 through 23.2.0 (inclusive) of the support library.
App files
styles.xml
<resources>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<style name="ToolbarStyle" parent="#style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/colorPrimary</item>
</style>
</resources>
activity_main.xml
<LinearLayout
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:orientation="vertical">
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="#+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:style="#style/ToolbarStyle" />
<fragment
android:id="#+id/map"
android:name="com.google.android.gms.maps.SupportMapFragment"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" />
</LinearLayout>
Runtime View Analysis
As #Commonsware suggested, I took a look at the view hierarchy at run time. Editing in the results:
Menu collapsed (overflow button present, no mysterious extra rectangle):
Menu expanded (overflow menu views displayed in separate Window):
The main application view hierarchy (as displayed in the original Window) is unchanged when comparing the two menu (steady) states. My guess is therefore that the extra rectangle is temporarily added to the main application's window during menu animations, and immediately removed upon their completion. I'm not sure why this would be done - perhaps it's a hangover from an older (and now unused) method of showing and hiding the overflow menu? If my deduction is correct, then this question could be resolved if we can determine how to prevent this transitory behavior...

An extract from the Chris Bane's answer to the question AppCompat style background propagated to the Image within the ToolBar
style = local to the Toolbar
theme = global to everything inflated in the Toolbar
Based on the above post it seems, the android:background attribute you are setting in the android:theme is the reason for the extra background color during the animation.
I'd set the background to the toolbar directly and used the android:colorBackground attribute to set the background color for the popup. The animation seems to work fine.
Code:
activity_main.xml
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="#+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#color/colorPrimary"
android:theme="#style/CustomToolbarTheme" />
styles.xml
<style name="CustomToolbarTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
<item name="android:colorBackground">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">#android:color/white</item>
</style>

Toolbar logo and title are centered even though they're not supposed to be

I'm having trouble implementing a Toolbar in my Android application. I have several problems, really.
First off, here's my MainActivity.java:
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar)findViewById(R.id.toolbar_Main);
toolbar.setLogo(R.drawable.logo);
toolbar.setTitle(R.string.app_name);
toolbar.inflateMenu(R.menu.main_actions);
setActionBar(toolbar);
}
}
activity_main.xml:
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical"
tools:context=".MainActivity"
android:nestedScrollingEnabled="false">
<Toolbar
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="?android:attr/actionBarSize"
android:id="#+id/toolbar_Main"
android:background="?android:attr/colorPrimary" />
<!-- There's an EditText here, but I think that's not the problem -->
</LinearLayout>
styles.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light">
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="android:colorPrimary">#color/primaryColor</item>
<item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">#color/primaryColorDark</item>
</style>
</resources>
The problems I'm having are:
the menu is gone;
the logo and title text are centered in the Toolbar, even though I'm pretty sure I haven't set any property to center or whatever.
Now the first problem I can fix by removing the setActionBar part (not sure if that's good practice though), but second one, not so much. The logo and text remain centered no matter what I try. I've tried setting the Toolbar's gravity to top|left, as well as some other things, all to no avail.
When searching on Google (or StackOverflow), all I get are results asking to center the text, which is what I don't want.
I should also mention that I'm developing the app only for API level 21, so no AppCompat and all that fancy stuff, just a Toolbar that I wish to use as the app's main ActionBar.
I'm probably just missing some tiny thing, so thanks in advance.

To me:
You should not remove the setActionBar() call;
Your menu might be disappearing because maybe you have a hardware menu button on your device. Try tapping and see what happens. To fix however, try deleting the inflateMenu() line and inflate the menu during onCreateOptionsMenu(), as usual;
Title and logo issues, as well as menu disappearing, might be due to:
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:windowActionBar">false</item>
Why these lines? Just remove them if you don't need.
If this doesn't fix, try calling setActionBar(toolbar) first, and then set title using getActionBar().setTitle() . However I'm pretty sure that removing the two window lines from your style will be enough, so do that first.

Transparent status bar not working with windowTranslucentNavigation="false"

I am developing an Activity where I need to make the navigation bar opaque, and the status bar transparent on devices running 5.0+ (API 21+). The styles I am using are below, along with an explanation of my problem.
AppTheme extends Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar
<item name="android:statusBarColor">#color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="android:windowDrawsSystemBarBackgrounds">true</item>
<item name="android:statusBarColor">#color/welbe_red_transparent</item>
FullscreenTheme extends AppTheme
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:statusBarColor">#color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowTranslucentNavigation">true</item>
This makes the app look like this
If I remove the android:windowTranslucentNavigation style, or set it to false in Fullscreen, it fixes the navigation bar issue. The problem is the status bar turns completely white instead of staying transparent and displaying the content behind it.
I have tried using fitsSystemWindow="true" in my layouts, but it didn't fix the issue. Anyone know why this is happening?

android:windowTranslucentNavigation does one thing that android:statusBarColor doesn't do, which is requesting the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE and SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN flags.
These are the ones that you need to request in order to draw behind the status bar.
Request them in the onCreate of your Activity:
getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN);
Alternatively you can also simply set your apps theme background and that will also pop up behind your status bar.
More information here.

As far as I know there's no proper way to set the color of the status bar on APIs lower than 19.
For API 19+ you can use a similar attribute to windowTranslucentNavigation only for the status bar:
<item name="android:windowTranslucentStatus">true</item>
Notes:
The reason you were getting a white status bar is because of
<item name="android:statusBarColor">#color/transparent</item>
There are some hacks that work on specific manufacturer devices, but I wouldn't use them myself.

I struggle with this for over 3 hours. Wrap everything in a CoordinatorLayout it is the only one that seems to pay attention to the fitsSystemWindow="true" or "false"
This is my main activity fragment
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/content_main"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<include layout="#layout/layout_google_map"/>
<include layout="#layout/layout_toolbar_transparent"/>
<include layout="#layout/layout_action_buttons"/>
<include layout="#layout/layout_bottom_sheet"/>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
this is my toolbar layout
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
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">
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:id="#+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:theme="#style/ToolbarTheme"
app:popupTheme="#style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay">
<android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="?actionBarSize"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:adjustViewBounds="true"
app:srcCompat="#drawable/ic_fynd_logo_red"/>
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
as you can see, my fragment layout makes the google map be drawn under the status bar.
I have an action bar where the company's logo goes.
And other ui buttons "layout_action_buttons" also wrapped in a Coordinator layout , so the fitsSystemsWindows works.
Check it out.

To achieve this in any activity
Add the style:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="android:statusBarColor">#android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
Use CoordinatorLayout as root layout in XML
In oncreate() method, before setcontentview use
window.decorView.systemUiVisibility = View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE or View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN

For the latest android version R and backward compatibility, this works for me.
WindowCompat.getInsetsController(window, window.decorView)?.isAppearanceLightStatusBars =false /* true for dark icon on StatusBar and false for white icon on StatusBar */
WindowCompat.setDecorFitsSystemWindows(window, false)
WindowCompat.getInsetsController(window, window.decorView)?.show(WindowInsetsCompat.Type.statusBars())
ViewCompat.setOnApplyWindowInsetsListener(findViewById(android.R.id.content)) { rootView, insets ->
val navigationBarHeight = insets.getInsets(WindowInsetsCompat.Type.navigationBars()).bottom
rootView.setPadding(0, 0, 0, navigationBarHeight)
insets
}
For Fragment, you can use activity?.window...

set actionbar icon height to match actionbar height

see the problem here, the grey checkbox leaves room from the top and bottom of the action bar:
styles.xml
<resources xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="Theme.Base.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:windowContentOverlay">#null</item>
<item name="android:actionButtonStyle">#style/ActionButtonStyle</item>
</style>
<!--<style name="ActionButtonStyle" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionButton">-->
<style name="ActionButtonStyle" >
<item name="android:height">#dimen/abc_action_bar_default_height</item>
<item name="android:layout_height">#dimen/abc_action_bar_default_height</item>
</style>
i set the item like so:
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.submit_action, menu);
submit_action looks like:
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item android:id="#+id/action_submit"
android:icon="#drawable/check"
app:showAsAction="always" />
</menu>
and finally, attached is the #drawable/check being used.
any idea how i can get the check to fill the actionbar?

The reason your icon doesn't fill the ActionBar is due to how the ActionMenuItemView measures the icon.
The ActionMenuItemView invokes a maximum size of 32dp when it sets the bounds for your icon
So, it makes so difference how large your image is, the system will always resize it.
any idea how i can get the check to fill the actionbar?
You should use a action layout for your MenuItem, a check mark icon with no background, and change the background color of the action layout parent as you see fit. Here's an example:
layout
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
style="?android:attr/actionButtonStyle"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#e8e8e8"
android:clickable="true"
android:contentDescription="#string/cd" >
<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:contentDescription="#null"
android:scaleType="centerInside"
android:src="#drawable/ic_action_tick" />
</RelativeLayout>
MenuItem
<item
android:id="#+id/action_submit"
android:actionLayout="#layout/your_action_layout"
android:showAsAction="always"/>
Accessibility
It's important to make sure your MenuItem is accessible. Normally when you long press an item in the ActionBar a short Toast will display the content description for you, but when you're using a custom MenuItem it's up to you to implement this pattern. An easy way to do this is by using Roman Nurik's CheatSheet. If you're unsure how to use it, you should refer to my answer here that goes into much more detail on creating custom MenuItem layouts.
Alternatively
If you want to use that background color for every MenuItem you have, you could create a custom style and apply it using the android:actionButtonStyle attribute. Here's an example of that:
Your style
<style name="Your.ActionButton" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionButton">
<item name="android:background">#e8e8e8</item>
</style>
Your theme
<style name="Your.Theme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionButtonStyle">#style/Your.ActionButton</item>
</style>
Results

Here's what I do with Icons in Android to get the sizing correct. You have an existing project with the res/drawable- folders. You have to put the correct Icon into the correct folder.
Start a new project wizard and when you get to the launcher icon put in the Icon you want to use in your existing project. finish the wizard. The wizard will make the various sizes of Icons for you. Then I manually copy the Icons from the res/drawable-xdpi res/drawable-ldpi etc to the corresponding folder on my existing project. Delete the new project it is no longer needed.

Open activity using a expand animation

I need to open a activity at the right part of the screen but still view the old activity at the left part of the screen.
It can be something like a dialog but i need to specify the position of the new activity and also remove the overlay look and feel.
how can i make this?
I have already achieve my first step. putting the activity at a specific position and see the main at the left of screen.
I have used the following style:
<style name="Theme.Transparent" parent="android:Theme">
<item name="android:windowIsTranslucent">true</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowContentOverlay">#null</item>
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:windowIsFloating">false</item>
<item name="android:backgroundDimEnabled">false</item>
</style>
in my layout file i have setted my linear layout like this
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="200dp"
android:layout_height="200dp"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:background="#drawable/background_login"
android:layout_gravity="top|right">
this way the activity goes to where i want. now i just need to open the activity with an expand animation and close it with an collapse animation.
Can someone tell me how?

Seems like you're looking for Fragments. Multiple fragments can be shown next to each other, so one fragment can be your left part of the screen and another one be opened on the right side.
Please refer to the Android Dev Guide for more information.