Android Custom title bar

Custom title bar is one of the basic needs for developers since it gives applications a better look and feel. Also we can align the title bar with application theme and colors. For example, i found Opera browser use a RED background theme for their title bar to align with their company theme. We can also show the company/application logo along with the title text. Here i will explain how i did for my projects. I would appreciate if anyone knows better ways please do post a link.

So lets start with a custom_title_bar.xml >created in /res/layout directory. Here ImageView hold the icon and TextView holds the title bar text. I did not set any background color here which i will set in my custom styles. But keep a layout height = 45dip which will be the title bar height.



Next Step -

Now create a custom_titlebar_style.xml in /res/values folder. Here I made a custom title background color style which I used like Facebook Title color [#3b5998]. And create another title bar size style of “45dip”. Now we are done.



Now add this custom style name in Manifest.xml file in tag. Like below -


We just need to do add 2 lines of code in onCreate() method. First add first line before setContentView(R.layout.your_layout.xml) method. Later set the integer value for a feature using the value (a layout xml file) of the custom title bar. Below shows -



Here how the custom title bar should look like. I have used Facebook style theme color which i like most -

And we are done. One thing, if we want no title bar? Specially game apps like it. Use the following code before calling setContentView() method-

/**
* If you want no title bar then use the following code:
* requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
* getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,
* WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
**/

You can get the Eclipse project here [API v8] – https://github.com/jnoras/com.jnoras.android

How to capture screens in android

I was wondering how to capture screen shots because we often want to take our applications screen shots. Later I found that android DDMS (/tools directory)allows to capture your screens. Lets look at how it works -

Here I am gonna show from Eclipse DDMS. If you are developing in eclipse, click WINDOW>Open perspective> DDMS.

Now you get a DDMS perspective. On the top left side, you can see  DEVICES tab, the name of the device(phone or emulator). In my case, i have a HTC desire connected with my laptop and its ID is <SH0A4PL03529>. Now click on the drop down menu as shown on the Figure:1 and click Screen Capture.

Fig:1 Eclipse DDMS perspective.

Once you click Screen Capture, you will see the current screen of your device. In my case, I have "All Apps" view which i captured. See at Fig-2. Now you can save, or rotate or whatever you want.

Fig2: Captured Screen

Simple and easy. You can also launch DDMS from /tools directory and capture screen of emulator or phone.