How can I set tabs at the bottom and also hide top actionbar?

Question

In my application I am using actionbar tabs at bottom. I have searched many tutorials but I am not understanding the solutions. Most of the answers said to use TabActivity, but that is deprecated. So can any one tell me how can approach this?

Answer 1

The best way to implement tabs now is to use a TabLayout from the design library.

Here is an example of a TabLayout aligned at the bottom of the screen.

First set up the dependencies in the build.gradle file:

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.0.1'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:23.0.1'
}

Here is the layout xml for the Main Activity:

<RelativeLayout
    android:id="@+id/main_layout"
    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=".MainActivity">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
        android:elevation="6dp"
        android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"
        app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light"/>

    <android.support.v4.view.ViewPager
        android:id="@+id/viewpager"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@id/toolbar"/>

    <android.support.design.widget.TabLayout
        android:id="@+id/tab_layout"
        app:tabMode="fixed"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
        android:elevation="6dp"
        app:tabTextColor="#d3d3d3"
        app:tabSelectedTextColor="#ffffff"
        app:tabIndicatorColor="#ff00ff"
        android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        />

</RelativeLayout>

Here is the Activity code:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

        // Get the ViewPager and set it's PagerAdapter so that it can display items
        ViewPager viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.viewpager);
        PagerAdapter pagerAdapter =
                new PagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager(), MainActivity.this);
        viewPager.setAdapter(pagerAdapter);

        // Give the TabLayout the ViewPager
        TabLayout tabLayout = (TabLayout) findViewById(R.id.tab_layout);
        tabLayout.setupWithViewPager(viewPager);

        // Iterate over all tabs and set the custom view
        for (int i = 0; i < tabLayout.getTabCount(); i++) {
            TabLayout.Tab tab = tabLayout.getTabAt(i);
            tab.setCustomView(pagerAdapter.getTabView(i));
        }
    }


    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        int id = item.getItemId();

        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
            return true;
        }

        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }

    class PagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

        String tabTitles[] = new String[] { "Tab One", "Tab Two", "Tab Three", };
        Context context;

        public PagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm, Context context) {
            super(fm);
            this.context = context;
        }

        @Override
        public int getCount() {
            return tabTitles.length;
        }

        @Override
        public Fragment getItem(int position) {

            switch (position) {
                case 0:
                    return new BlankFragment();
                case 1:
                    return new BlankFragment();
                case 2:
                    return new MapFragment();
            }

            return null;
        }

        @Override
        public CharSequence getPageTitle(int position) {
            // Generate title based on item position
            return tabTitles[position];
        }

        public View getTabView(int position) {
            View tab = LayoutInflater.from(MainActivity.this).inflate(R.layout.custom_tab, null);
            TextView tv = (TextView) tab.findViewById(R.id.custom_text);
            tv.setText(tabTitles[position]);
            return tab;
        }

    }
}

custom_tab.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/custom_text"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:background="?attr/selectableItemBackground"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:textSize="16dip"
        android:textColor="#ffffff"
        android:singleLine="true"
        />
</LinearLayout>

App theme in styles.xml:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
    <!--   your app branding color for the app bar -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">#3F51B5</item>
    <!--   darker variant for the status bar and contextual app bars -->
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">#303F9F</item>
    <!--   theme UI controls like checkboxes and text fields -->
    <item name="colorAccent">#FF4081</item>
</style>

Result:

If you want to hide the ActionBar, just remove the toolbar from the layout xml, and remove the toolbar code from the Activity, and make sure to use Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar in the AppTheme. The result of those changes would make it look like this: