How to hide status bar in AOSP build

Question

I'd like to hide/remove the status bar (i.e the top bar containing clock, notifications,...) in my custom AOSP image.

Do you know if it's practically possible ? And how ?

Answer 1

The status bar layout is defined in frameworks/base/packages/SystemUI/res/layout/status_bar.xml:

<com.android.systemui.statusbar.phone.PhoneStatusBarView
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:systemui="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.android.systemui"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="@dimen/status_bar_height"
    android:id="@+id/status_bar"
    android:background="@drawable/system_bar_background"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:focusable="false"
    android:descendantFocusability="afterDescendants"
    >

    <!-- […] -->

</com.android.systemui.statusbar.phone.PhoneStatusBarView>

You could try to set the height of com.android.systemui.statusbar.phone.PhoneStatusBarView to 0dp (defined by status_bar_height in frameworks/base/core/res/res/values/dimens.xml) or its visibility to gone.

Here is a link to a guide on xda-developers that explains how to "hack" SystemUI.apk and framework-res.apk to hide the status bar: [GUIDE] Hide Status Bar and still being able to expand it on Jelly Bean. It may be useful to know which resources to modify.