How do you remove the title text from the Android ActionBar?

Question

I'm looking through the Holo.Light theme, and I can't seem to find the magic style to override to get rid of the title text that briefly shows up when my app first launches.

How can I do that?

Chaker

Answer 1

Got it. You have to override

android:actionBarStyle

and then in your custom style you have to override

android:titleTextStyle

Here's a sample.

In my themes.xml:

<style name="CustomActionBar" parent="android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/CustomActionBarStyle</item>
</style>

And in my styles.xml:

<style name="CustomActionBarStyle" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/NoTitleText</item>
        <item name="android:subtitleTextStyle">@style/NoTitleText</item>
</style>

<style name="NoTitleText">
        <item name="android:textSize">0sp</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#00000000</item>
</style>

I'm not sure why setting the textSize to zero didn't do the trick (it shrunk the text, but didn't make it go away), but setting the textColor to transparent works.

Chaker

Yes that helped. Any idea why android:visibility=gone has no effect? Or better yet, why does setDisplayShowTitleEnabled still show the title text while the bar is loading? – Royalty

Use <item name="android:displayOptions">useLogo|showHome</item> instead of setting size to 0 – Tessy

Answer 2

Try:

 getActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

For v.7:

 getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

Tadich

you will still see the title while the action bar is loading which is not what you want. the right solution is what m3n0R suggested. – Possibly

it should be getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false); for v7 . othewise it will produce null pointer execption – Hypoglossal

@numansalati Who is m3n0R? I've searched the page and found nothing – Maquis

When should I cal the methods? I mean from which method (activity, fragment) should it be called? – Maquis

You just need this once, in onCreate of your MainActivity.tk. This is the right solution, ignore the comments above. – Crystallo

Answer 3

I think this is the right answer:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.Styled.ActionBar</item>
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.Styled.ActionBar</item>
</style>

<style name="Widget.Styled.ActionBar" parent="Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:displayOptions">showHome|useLogo</item>
    <item name="displayOptions">showHome|useLogo</item>
</style>

Hovel

What about Android 4? I am not using ActionBarSherlock so there is no resource named Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse. What parent should I use? – Meridional

Holo Theme. By default there are 3 holo themes you can extend on. – Hovel

This works for hiding the title on first launch. In another activity calling setTitle doesn't work. Is there a way to swap action bar styles at runtime? – Nabonidus

setting the default theme on runtime :) – Hovel

@domji84, You can specify the theme of each activity in the manifest file. – Sufflate

I had to set the android:actionBarStyle on the style of the Activity, not the Application. So, use parent=@style/Theme.AppCompat and apply to the Activity. Just a tip to others struggling to get this working. – Frequently

For Android 4, you can extend from Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse – Lamasery

Answer 4

I'm very new to Android so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you decide to use navigation tabs on the Action Bar, they seemed to not be completely left aligned because the title text color is only transparent and hasn't gone away.

<style name="CustomActionBarStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
     <item name="android:displayOptions">useLogo|showHome</item>
</style>

worked for me.

Shopwindow

yes,you are wrong, no tabs in question and no holo light in your answer – Onfroi

While am try this, am getting this error, @android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar requires API level 11 (current min is 10). – Salzhauer

If I want to assign this style to action bar of a specific activity and not for all the activities of my application. How can I do it? where do I put the 'android:displayOptions' line? in Menu.xml? In AndroidMenifest.xml? – Calais

How is that supposed to work? Please add more details for a end-to-end solution. – Crystallo

Answer 5

In your Manifest

<activity android:name=".ActivityHere"
     android:label="">

Pruitt

This does work, but will stop your app appearing in the 'Recently used apps' chooser – Wavelength

this make the app don't have name on phone applications / main screen – Disturb

Hi @RupertBates, @Nimitack, it seems works if you assign your app name in the application tab, i.e., <application android:label="your_app_name">... – Cinerarium

Answer 6

Write this statement under

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

if extending AppCompactActivity use getSupportActionbar() if extending Activity use getActionBar() else it may give

null pointer exception

using android:label="" in AndroidManifest.xml for activity also works but your app won't appear in Recently used apps

Lifeless

Answer 7

you have two choice:

first:

getActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

If usign getActionBar() produced null pointer exception, you should use getSupportActionBar()

Second

getSupportActionBar().setTitle("your title");

or

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
getSupportActionBar().hide();

Emendate

Answer 8

You can change the style applied to each activity, or if you only want to change the behavior for a specific activity, you can try this:

setDisplayOptions(int options, int mask) --- Set selected display 
  or
setDisplayOptions(int options) --- Set display options.

To display title on actionbar, set display options in onCreate()

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_TITLE, ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_TITLE);

To hide title on actionbar.

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(0, ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_TITLE);

Details here.

Earthling

Answer 9

i use this code in App manifest

<application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:logo="@drawable/logo2"
        android:label="@string/title_text"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.Zinoostyle" >

my logo file is 200*800 pixel and use this code in main activity.java

getActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

it will work Corectly

Roadster

Answer 10

I tried this. This will help -

Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
    setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
    getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

getSupportActionBar should be called after setSupportActionBar, thus setting the toolbar, otherwise, NullpointerException because there is no toolbar set. Hope this helps

Freestyle

Answer 11

The only thing that really worked for me was to add:

<activity 
    android:name=".ActivityHere"
    android:label=""
>

Good

well was the "wrong" answer,however it help me with a similar case :) – Functional

Don't do this as it will crash your application when minimized – Sollie

Answer 12

as a workaround just add this line incase you have custom action/toolbars

this.setTitle("");

in your Activity

Clarkia

Answer 13

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
    getSupportActionBar().hide();

hope this will help

Featured

Answer 14

If you only want to do it for one activity and perhaps even dynamically, you can also use

ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.setDisplayOptions(actionBar.getDisplayOptions() ^ ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_TITLE);

Giulio

Answer 15

Use the following:

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

Tendentious

You can't do that if you're using the ActionBar. If you try to do this the app will immediately crash when it opens. – Chaker

@ChristopherPerry not true. you can use this to remove the action bar in code, provided you do it before calling setContentView. – Possibly

though, this is removing the whole actionbar instead of just its title! – Bursarial

Answer 16

While all of these are acceptable, if your activity only contains a main activity, you can edit res\values\styles.xml like so:

<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    </style>

</resources>

I've updated parent and added the .NoActionBar property to the Light theme from Android Studios Create Blank Application Wizard.

Aphotic

That will disable entire action bar not only title. And if you want to create blank action bar you will have to do it for every single view. – Viera

Answer 17

Simply extends your java file from AppCompatActivity and do this:

ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar(); // support.v7
actionBar.setTitle(" ");

Debose

Answer 18

In your manifest.xml page you can give address to your activity label. the address is somewhere in your values/strings.xml . then you can change the value of the tag in xml file to null.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="title_main_activity"></string>
</resources>

Ioyal

Answer 19

I am new to Android so maybe I am wrong...but to solve this problem cant we just go to the manifest and remove the activity label

<activity
        android:name=".Bcft"
        android:screenOrientation="portrait"

        **android:label="" >**

Worked for me....

Farris

Answer 20

I remove the default appbar and run a custom toolbar instead using Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar then add a textview or something that extend to full toolbar width using attribute layout_width=match_parent and it pushes the title out of the toolbar. If you want to do this, you must study how to make a toolbar.

Minhminho

Answer 21

ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.setTitle("");

Swearword

@Matteo Although it may work, it's certainly sketchy and not the right way to do it. In fact, it doesn't actually remove the title text, it just sets it to "", so that you cannot see it. – Sistrunk