Make Action Bar Transparent
I have been working on an app which produces long exposure effect. As of now, we are almost ready with the free version of the app. For this, I got some feedback from some of the users. One of them said that we should make the action bar transparent and since it’s a camera app, it’d look great if it’s interface looked similar to that of Google Camera app. We are nowhere near that app, but we thought of giving it a try. Plus, making the Action Bar transparent gives more space for the camera preview.
To make this happen, I looked around a lot. Found many answers on stackoverflow, but none of them really worked. But it was a simple solution.
Following are some files that I changed.
styles.xml
<resources>
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light"/>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
<item name="android:windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.ActionBar</item>
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#fff</item>
</style>
<style name="Widget.ActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">@android:color/transparent</item>
</style>
<style name="Widget.ActionBar.Transparent">
<item name="android:background">@android:color/transparent</item>
</style>
</resources>
themes.xml
I may have repeated things here.
<resources>
<style name="Theme.TranslucentActionBar" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.ActionBar</item>
<item name="android:windowActionBar">true</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">@android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowContentOverlay">@null</item>
</style>
<style name="Theme.TranslucentActionBar.ActionBar" />
<style name="Theme.TranslucentActionBar.ActionBar.Overlay">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.ActionBar.Transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
</style>
</resources>
In MainActivity
This may not have played a role in it.
ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
actionBar.setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(false);
AndroidManifest.xml
Now, this is the most important part. I spent over an hour to make it transparent and this was the solution.
<application
.
.
some stuff here
android:theme="@style/Theme.TranslucentActionBar" >
.
.
some more stuff here
</application>
And here’s a screenshot of the app that I am working on
Low light and low res of the front camera. Still working on the UI.
P.S. Releasing Lenx next week.
Playing around with Android UI
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