Icon in Tab is not showing up

Question

I'm starting with Android and when I try to do a TabHost with an icon and a text. Only the text is visible, if I left the text in blank it is possible to see the icon. I want to see both on screen.

Can somebody give me advice?

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);

Usuario usu = new Usuario();
usu.nombre = "fsdf";
lista.add(usu);

adaptador = new AdaptadorCelda(this,lista);
ListView lstView = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.lista);
lstView.setAdapter(adaptador);

Button btn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btnSalva);

btn.setOnClickListener(onSave);



Resources res = getResources();

TabHost tabs=(TabHost)findViewById(R.id.tabhost);
tabs.setup();

TabHost.TabSpec spec=tabs.newTabSpec("mitab1");
spec.setContent(R.id.tab1);
spec.setIndicator("",res.getDrawable(android.R.drawable.ic_menu_rotate));


tabs.addTab(spec);

spec=tabs.newTabSpec("mitab2");
spec.setContent(R.id.tab2);
spec.setIndicator("ddd",
       res.getDrawable(android.R.drawable.presence_invisible));
tabs.addTab(spec);

tabs.setCurrentTab(0);

spec.setIndicator("",res.getDrawable(android.R.drawable.ic_menu_rotate)) In this case icon appears.

spec.setIndicator("ddd",
       res.getDrawable(android.R.drawable.presence_invisible));

and here is the main.xml

<TabHost xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="@+id/tabhost"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >

<TabWidget
    android:id="@android:id/tabs"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"

    android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

<FrameLayout
    android:id="@android:id/tabcontent"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <RelativeLayout
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:id="@+id/tab1"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:orientation="vertical" >
       <TextView
            android:id="@+id/lblNombre"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
            android:layout_marginTop="17dp"
            android:text="Nombre"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

        <EditText
            android:id="@+id/txtNombre"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignTop="@+id/lblNombre"
            android:layout_marginLeft="35dp"
            android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/lblNombre"
            android:ems="10" >

            <requestFocus />
        </EditText>

        <EditText
            android:id="@+id/txtApellido"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/txtNombre"
            android:layout_below="@+id/txtNombre"
            android:ems="10" />

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/lblApellido"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/txtApellido"
            android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
            android:text="Apellidos"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

        <RadioGroup
            android:id="@+id/tipos"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@+id/txtApellido"
            android:layout_marginTop="35dp"
            android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/txtApellido" >

            <RadioButton
                android:id="@+id/rdbAlta"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="alta" />

            <RadioButton
                android:id="@+id/rdbBaja"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="baja" />

            <RadioButton
                android:id="@+id/rdbTramite"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="tramite" />
        </RadioGroup>

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/btnSalva"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/txtApellido"
            android:layout_alignTop="@+id/tipos"
            android:layout_marginLeft="58dp"
            android:layout_marginTop="30dp"
            android:text="Button" />

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/imageView1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
            android:layout_below="@+id/txtApellido"
            android:src="@drawable/ic_menu_chart" />

    </RelativeLayout>

    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@+id/tab2"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:orientation="vertical" >

        <ListView
            android:id="@+id/lista"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
            android:layout_below="@+id/tipos"
            android:layout_marginTop="24dp" >
        </ListView>
    </LinearLayout>
</FrameLayout>

Answer 1

Have you tested your app on a device running Ice Cream Sandwich? I noticed recently, that the default TabHost behaves differently depending on the target device and the android platform version.

Running an app that provides an icon and a text to setIndicator (as in the source from the question), had the following test result:

• Phone with Android 2.1: both icon and text where shown (Label below the Icon as expected)
• Phone with 4.0.3: The icons didn't show and only the text was visible.
• Tablet running ICS: the tabs where shown with icon and text

As you found out too, replacing the label with an empty string the icons appeared on the Phone - but then the user would need to guess the meaning of the icons. Apart from that: When running this version of the app on the pre ICS phone: The tabs keep their size and leave an empty area below the image.

To change this device driven decision on how much space the tabs should get, I found the solution in this tutorial on how to customize tabs:

First you need to provide your own tab indicator layout ("layout/tab_indicator.xml" in the tutorial) including an ImageView and a TextView. Then you tell the TabSpec to use this via setIndicator. And voilà: you get the icon and the label on the phone with ICS too.

Here is the important part on how to set up the indicator (this = the current activity):

TabHost.TabSpec spec = this.getTabHost().newTabSpec(tag);

View tabIndicator = LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.tab_indicator, getTabWidget(), false);
((TextView) tabIndicator.findViewById(R.id.title)).setText(label);
((ImageView) tabIndicator.findViewById(R.id.icon)).setImageResource(drawableResourceId);

spec.setIndicator(tabIndicator);

If you like the same look of the tabs on older and newer phones have an additional look here: http://jgilfelt.github.com/android-actionbarstylegenerator/. This page generates images and styles to customize the action bar including the tabs and helped me figure out how the 9-patch background images need to be defined.

Answer 2

This is a easy way to show the text and icon in ICS. After to setup the Tabhost, I call the next methods:

setTabIcon(mTabHost, 0, R.drawable.ic_tab1); //for Tab 1
setTabIcon(mTabHost, 1, R.drawable.ic_tab2); //for Tab 2

public void setTabIcon(TabHost tabHost, int tabIndex, int iconResource) {
    ImageView tabImageView = (ImageView) tabHost.getTabWidget().getChildTabViewAt(tabIndex).findViewById(android.R.id.icon);
    tabImageView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    tabImageView.setImageResource(iconResource);
}

If you want a more advanced solution, you need to create a layout like @sunadorer recommend. My recommendation is that you can create your layout using the holo theme layout, search the file on your sdk_dir/platforms/android-14/data/res/layout/tab_indicator_holo.xml.

My advanced solution is the next, you need to create a layout like this:

tab_indicator.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_height="wrap_content"
              android:orientation="vertical"
              android:paddingTop="5dp"
              android:paddingBottom="5dp"
              style="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Tab">

    <ImageView
        android:id="@android:id/icon"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:visibility="visible" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@android:id/title"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        style="@android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar.TabText" />

</LinearLayout>

In your activity or fragment, create the next function:

public View createTabIndicator(LayoutInflater inflater, TabHost tabHost, int textResource, int iconResource) {
    View tabIndicator = inflater.inflate(R.layout.tab_indicator, tabHost.getTabWidget(), false);
    ((TextView) tabIndicator.findViewById(android.R.id.title)).setText(textResource);
    ((ImageView) tabIndicator.findViewById(android.R.id.icon)).setImageResource(iconResource);
    return tabIndicator;
}

And finally when you create your tab in your activity or fragment use the next code:

mTabHost.addTab(
    mTabHost.newTabSpec("tab1")
    .setIndicator(createTabIndicator(inflater, mTabHost, R.string.tab1, R.drawable.ic_tab1))
    .setContent(R.id.tab1)
);

I have tested this solution in ICS and works fine.

Good luck :)