How to change status bar color to match app in Lollipop? [Android]

Question

In the new lollipop update I noticed that with the native Google apps the color of the status bar changes to match the action bar on the app you're running. I see it's on the Twitter app also so I'm guessing it's not exclusively Google who can do it.

Does anyone know how to do this if it is possible?

Answer 1

To change status bar color use setStatusBarColor(int color). According the javadoc, we also need set some flags on the window.

Working snippet of code:

Window window = activity.getWindow(); window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DRAWS_SYSTEM_BAR_BACKGROUNDS); window.clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TRANSLUCENT_STATUS); window.setStatusBarColor(ContextCompat.getColor(activity, R.color.example_color)); 

Keep in mind according Material Design guidelines status bar color and action bar color should be different:

• ActionBar should use primary 500 color
• StatusBar should use primary 700 color

Look at the screenshot below:

Answer 2

Just add this in you styles.xml. The colorPrimary is for the action bar and the colorPrimaryDark is for the status bar.

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">     <item name="android:colorPrimary">@color/primary</item>     <item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">@color/primary_dark</item> </style> 

This picture from developer android explains more about color pallete. You can read more on this link.