Toolbar With Horizontal ProgressBar underneath

Question

With the new Toolbar API in Android Lollipop and AppCompat-v7, they are removing a lot of the automatic features to make Toolbar/ActionBar more robust. One of those things is the progress bar. Since Toolbar is simply a ViewGroup, I assumed adding a ProgressBar would be simple. However, I cannot seem to get it to work properly.

I have done the following (using the SmoothProgressBar library):

    // I instantiate the toolbar and set it as the actionbar
    mToolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
    setSupportActionBar(mToolbar);

    // I create a ProgressBar and set the drawable to the SmoothProgressBar drawable
    ProgressBar progressBar = new ProgressBar(this);
    progressBar.setIndeterminateDrawable(new SmoothProgressDrawable.Builder(this).color(Color.BLUE).interpolator
            (new DecelerateInterpolator()).sectionsCount(4).separatorLength(8).speed(2f).mirrorMode(true).build());
    // I add the progressbar to the view with what I thought were the proper LayoutParams.
    Toolbar.LayoutParams params = new Toolbar.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, 20);
    params.gravity = Gravity.BOTTOM;
    mToolbar.addView(progressBar, params);
    progressBar.setIndeterminate(true);

I had figured this would work as I'm simply adding a ProgressBar to the bottom of the ViewGroup. However, it is not showing at all and is removing the Title. Below you can see a before and after. Does anyone know how to go about fixing this? My goal is to have a ProgressBar underneath the actionbar.

Before

After

Answer 1

The easiest way is to the to add the ProgressBar directly in the XML-Layout files.

1. One time Solution

Using a RelativeLayout as root and use android:layout_below to keep the ProgressBar and the main content below the toolbar.

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
                xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimaryDark"/>

    <fr.castorflex.android.smoothprogressbar.SmoothProgressBar
        android:id="@+id/loadProgressBar"
        style="@style/LoadProgressBar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="4dp"
        android:layout_below="@+id/toolbar"
        android:indeterminate="true"/>

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/toolbar"
        android:orientation="vertical">
        <!-- Your Content here -->
        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="Content Text"/>

    </LinearLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

Now you can access the Toolbar and the ProgressBar in the Activitiy onCreate method

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
    progressBar = (SmoothProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.loadProgressBar);
    if (toolbar != null) {
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
    }
}

2. General solution using include

A more general approach is to put the Toolbar and the ProgressBar in a separate XML-Layout file and include this in the activity layout.

toolbar.xml

<merge xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimaryDark"/>

    <fr.castorflex.android.smoothprogressbar.SmoothProgressBar
        android:id="@+id/loadProgressBar"
        style="@style/LoadProgressBar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="4dp"
        android:layout_below="@+id/toolbar"
        android:indeterminate="true"/>

</merge>

activity_main.xml

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
                xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <include
        layout="@layout/toolbar"/>

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/toolbar"
        android:orientation="vertical">
        <!-- Your Content here -->
        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="Content Text"/>

    </LinearLayout>

</RelativeLayout>