ActionBar background image

Question

I've inherited the Holo Light Theme and customized the background of the ActionBar with the following:

Content of styles.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="ActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
</style>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/ActionBar</item>
</style>
</resources>

Content of actionbar_background.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:src="@raw/actionbar_background"
android:tileMode="repeat" />

Instead of being repeated, the image is stretched, any idea of why android:tileMode="repeat" is not applied?

Thanks in advance

score 44 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 07 '12 at 07:56

44

Drawable d=getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.background_image_name);  
getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(d);

The above code sets the background image for the action bar.
Hope it helps.

edited Dec 07 '12 at 07:56

Himanshu

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answered Dec 07 '12 at 07:40

Raj Trivedi

557
7
18

but why its not supporting below version like 2.2, 2.3.3, and so on – prabu May 22 '14 at 11:59

score 43 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 04 '14 at 10:42

43

Ok, thanks to Romain Guy on #android-dev IRC channel, it's a known bug on honeycomb / Android 3.0 which will be fixed on the next release. Since then, the only solution is do it from code, and it works :-)

 final ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar(); 
 BitmapDrawable background = new BitmapDrawable (BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.raw.actionbar_background)); 
 background.setTileModeX(android.graphics.Shader.TileMode.REPEAT); 
 actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(background);

edited Jun 04 '14 at 10:42

Vinay W

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answered May 03 '11 at 06:12

rnoway

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1

May i ask how you did it from code? How to set to be tileMode repeat? I always got null when try to get the action bar – Alex May 12 '11 at 13:41
8

I've done it like this: final ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar(); BitmapDrawable background = new BitmapDrawable(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.raw.actionbar_background)); background.setTileModeX(android.graphics.Shader.TileMode.REPEAT); actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(background); – rnoway May 13 '11 at 06:17
1

@rnoway , it would be better to add your comment as an edit in your answer. You should mark the answer as resolution, because it fixes the problem. – Mario Kutlev Jun 21 '13 at 21:27
For me it works if I call `invalidateMenuOptions` after `setBackgroundDrawable` without making any assumptions about the type of `Drawable` – gunar Aug 14 '13 at 06:11
@rnoway: Why did you define actionBar property final? How defining it final affects it? Sorry i'm new to Java and Android. Thanks – Mustafa Chelik Dec 03 '14 at 22:14

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 31 '13 at 11:26

You can easily do this thing. If you would like to change Action Bar background image then you place this code to your res/styles.xml file.

 <style name="Theme.MyAppTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/Theme.MyAppTheme.ActionBar</item>
    </style>

    <style name="Theme.MyAppTheme.ActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:background">@drawable/top_black_bg</item>
    </style>

For this you have to select an image from "drawable" folder . Here I select an image "tp_black_bg.png"

After that don't forget to declare this theme to your AndroidManifest.xml file

    <application
        .
        .
        .
        android:theme="@style/Theme.MyAppTheme" >.............</application>

Now you can reopen any XML layout file , you can easily see the effect. In the same way you can also able to change the background color of ActionBar.

Thanks.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 10 '15 at 02:09

3

mActionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.navbar));

answered Mar 10 '15 at 02:09

Naskov

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 23 '15 at 11:03

2

Use getSupportActionBar() from android.support.v7 for backward compatability.

answered Jan 23 '15 at 11:03

Ron

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5

ActionBar background image

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