Using new IMMERSIVE mode in android kitkat

Question

I want to make an activity to go into IMMERSIVE mode and hide top and buttom system bars as soon as it starts.

In developers site of android they say I should use setSystemUiVisibility() and provide SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE and SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION.

How can I do this in the OnCreate() method of the activity? I think the setSystemUiVisibility is not provided in the Activity class and it should happen in a view. Is there a workaround?

UPDATE

ok According to doorstuck I added the following lines but I dont see any changes, navigation bar and buttom buttons are still visible :

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
        }
        getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION);
        getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE);
    }

    //Rest of activity code

Answer 1

Get the decor view:

getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(...)

Remember that the arguments are bit flags. Only call the method above once:

getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(
          View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE
        | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_HIDE_NAVIGATION
        | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN
        | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION
        | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN
        | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE);

Answer 2

Chris Banes gist shows a nice Helper Class we can use to set the immersive mode for all Versions from HoneyComb to Lollipop https://gist.github.com/chrisbanes/73de18faffca571f7292.

Update: I tried get it from his github repo to include in my project, but i had to clone the gist files into my project and adjsut the packagename. If someone knows how to include it properly as a dependency, u r welcome to help me.

I added it in my FullScreenActivity i want to use the ImmersiveStickyMode like this:

@Override
public void onWindowFocusChanged(boolean hasFocus) {
    super.onWindowFocusChanged(hasFocus);

        final int flags = View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_HIDE_NAVIGATION
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE_STICKY;

        SystemUiHelper uiHelper =  new SystemUiHelper(this, SystemUiHelper.LEVEL_IMMERSIVE ,flags);
        uiHelper.hide();



}

Answer 3

You can create global function to go into immersive mode like:

public static void enableImmersiveMode(final View decorView) {
        decorView.setSystemUiVisibility(setSystemUiVisibility());
        decorView.setOnSystemUiVisibilityChangeListener(new View.OnSystemUiVisibilityChangeListener() {
            @Override
            public void onSystemUiVisibilityChange(int visibility) {
                if ((visibility & View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN) == 0) {
                    decorView.setSystemUiVisibility(setSystemUiVisibility());
                }
            }
        });
    }


public static int setSystemUiVisibility() {
        return View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_HIDE_NAVIGATION
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN
                | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE_STICKY;
 }

Above code will also control system UI visibility change. Hope this will help you.