No ActionBar in PreferenceActivity after upgrade to Support Library v21

Question

After I upgraded to the Support Library v21 my ActionBar in my PreferenceActivity is gone.

Did I miss some attributes in my theme to activate it again? I had some similar trouble with a black ActionBar.

I also tried to add it a little hackish by adding a Toolbar to the root layout, but that did not work as expected.

Answer 1

Please find the GitHub Repo: Here

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Very Similar to your own code but added xml to allow for set title:

Continuing to use PreferenceActivity:

settings_toolbar.xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar     xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"     xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"     android:id="@+id/toolbar"     app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"     android:layout_width="match_parent"     android:layout_height="wrap_content"     android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"     app:navigationContentDescription="@string/abc_action_bar_up_description"     android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"     app:navigationIcon="?attr/homeAsUpIndicator"     app:title="@string/action_settings"     /> 

SettingsActivity.java :

public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity {      @Override     protected void onPostCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onPostCreate(savedInstanceState);          LinearLayout root = (LinearLayout)findViewById(android.R.id.list).getParent().getParent().getParent();         Toolbar bar = (Toolbar) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.settings_toolbar, root, false);         root.addView(bar, 0); // insert at top         bar.setNavigationOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {             @Override             public void onClick(View v) {                 finish();             }         });     }  } 

Result :

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UPDATE (Gingerbread Compatibility) :

As pointed out here, Gingerbread Devices are returning NullPointerException on this line:

LinearLayout root = (LinearLayout)findViewById(android.R.id.list).getParent().getParent().getParent(); 

FIX:

SettingsActivity.java :

public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity {      @Override     protected void onPostCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onPostCreate(savedInstanceState);         Toolbar bar;          if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {             LinearLayout root = (LinearLayout) findViewById(android.R.id.list).getParent().getParent().getParent();             bar = (Toolbar) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.settings_toolbar, root, false);             root.addView(bar, 0); // insert at top         } else {             ViewGroup root = (ViewGroup) findViewById(android.R.id.content);             ListView content = (ListView) root.getChildAt(0);              root.removeAllViews();              bar = (Toolbar) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.settings_toolbar, root, false);                           int height;             TypedValue tv = new TypedValue();             if (getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.actionBarSize, tv, true)) {                 height = TypedValue.complexToDimensionPixelSize(tv.data, getResources().getDisplayMetrics());             }else{                 height = bar.getHeight();             }              content.setPadding(0, height, 0, 0);              root.addView(content);             root.addView(bar);         }          bar.setNavigationOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {             @Override             public void onClick(View v) {                 finish();             }         });     } } 

Any issues with the above let me know!

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UPDATE 2: TINTING WORKAROUND

As pointed out in many dev notes PreferenceActivity does not support tinting of elements, however by utilising a few internal classes you CAN achieve this. That is until these classes are removed. (Works using appCompat support-v7 v21.0.3).

Add the following imports:

import android.support.v7.internal.widget.TintCheckBox; import android.support.v7.internal.widget.TintCheckedTextView; import android.support.v7.internal.widget.TintEditText; import android.support.v7.internal.widget.TintRadioButton; import android.support.v7.internal.widget.TintSpinner; 

Then override the onCreateView method:

@Override public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {     // Allow super to try and create a view first     final View result = super.onCreateView(name, context, attrs);     if (result != null) {         return result;     }      if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {         // If we're running pre-L, we need to 'inject' our tint aware Views in place of the         // standard framework versions         switch (name) {             case "EditText":                 return new TintEditText(this, attrs);             case "Spinner":                 return new TintSpinner(this, attrs);             case "CheckBox":                 return new TintCheckBox(this, attrs);             case "RadioButton":                 return new TintRadioButton(this, attrs);             case "CheckedTextView":                 return new TintCheckedTextView(this, attrs);         }     }      return null; } 

Result:

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AppCompat 22.1

AppCompat 22.1 introduced new tinted elements, meaning that there is no longer a need to utilise the internal classes to achieve the same effect as the last update. Instead follow this (still overriding onCreateView):

@Override public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {     // Allow super to try and create a view first     final View result = super.onCreateView(name, context, attrs);     if (result != null) {         return result;     }      if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {         // If we're running pre-L, we need to 'inject' our tint aware Views in place of the         // standard framework versions         switch (name) {             case "EditText":                 return new AppCompatEditText(this, attrs);             case "Spinner":                 return new AppCompatSpinner(this, attrs);             case "CheckBox":                 return new AppCompatCheckBox(this, attrs);             case "RadioButton":                 return new AppCompatRadioButton(this, attrs);             case "CheckedTextView":                 return new AppCompatCheckedTextView(this, attrs);         }     }      return null; } 

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NESTED PREFERENCE SCREENS

A lot of people are experiencing issues with including the Toolbar in nested <PreferenceScreen />s however, I have found a solution!! - After a lot of trial and error!

Add the following to your SettingsActivity:

@SuppressWarnings("deprecation") @Override public boolean onPreferenceTreeClick(PreferenceScreen preferenceScreen, Preference preference) {     super.onPreferenceTreeClick(preferenceScreen, preference);      // If the user has clicked on a preference screen, set up the screen     if (preference instanceof PreferenceScreen) {         setUpNestedScreen((PreferenceScreen) preference);     }      return false; }  public void setUpNestedScreen(PreferenceScreen preferenceScreen) {     final Dialog dialog = preferenceScreen.getDialog();      Toolbar bar;      if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.ICE_CREAM_SANDWICH) {         LinearLayout root = (LinearLayout) dialog.findViewById(android.R.id.list).getParent();         bar = (Toolbar) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.settings_toolbar, root, false);         root.addView(bar, 0); // insert at top     } else {         ViewGroup root = (ViewGroup) dialog.findViewById(android.R.id.content);         ListView content = (ListView) root.getChildAt(0);          root.removeAllViews();          bar = (Toolbar) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.settings_toolbar, root, false);          int height;         TypedValue tv = new TypedValue();         if (getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.actionBarSize, tv, true)) {             height = TypedValue.complexToDimensionPixelSize(tv.data, getResources().getDisplayMetrics());         }else{             height = bar.getHeight();         }          content.setPadding(0, height, 0, 0);          root.addView(content);         root.addView(bar);     }      bar.setTitle(preferenceScreen.getTitle());      bar.setNavigationOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {         @Override         public void onClick(View v) {             dialog.dismiss();         }     }); } 

The reason that PreferenceScreen's are such a pain is because they are based as a wrapper dialog, so we need to capture the dialog layout to add the toolbar to it.

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Toolbar Shadow

By design importing the Toolbar does not allow for elevation and shadowing in pre-v21 devices, so if you would like to have elevation on your Toolbar you need to wrap it in a AppBarLayout:

`settings_toolbar.xml :

<android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout     xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"     android:layout_width="match_parent"     android:layout_height="wrap_content">     <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar        .../>  </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout> 

Not forgetting to add the add the Design Support library as a dependency in build.gradle file:

compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:22.2.0' compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:22.2.0' compile 'com.android.support:design:22.2.0' 

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Android 6.0

I have investigated the reported overlapping issue and I cannot reproduce the issue.

The full code in use as above produces the following:

If I am missing something please let me know via this repo and I will investigate.