Set Actionbar overlay mode at runtime in Android

Question

How do I set the actionbar mode at runtime to not-overlay or overlay with the content at runtime? I tried using getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTIONBAR_OVERLAY) but it doesn't allow to set the mode after calling setContentView(). This can be done, as I have seen it being done in the Youtube app.

Metage

Hi Sowrabh, did you find any solution? – Scotopia

No luck @Wayne. The best I could do is to set the actionbar overlay mode to Window.FEATURE_ACTIONBAR_OVERLAY always and then set the Y-coordinate of the whole view to the bottom of the actionbar when needed. Not a very clean solution though – Metage

Oh thanks you, that may be a workaround :D. But it will be nice if we know how Youtube did it :D – Scotopia

Possible duplicate – Hazardous

That question doesn't ask about changing the actionbar overlay mode at runtime. All it asks is how to get an actionbar in a full screen app. – Metage

I'm pretty sure YouTube is faking us out, and on the 'full screen' video, they have a fake ActionBar (totally guessing based on what I am seeing). On your phone, if you go into landscape and minimize the video, then slowly drag the video to full screen, when the top of it hits the actionbar the actionbar hides / animates up. – Crary

Answer 1

Although not necessarily exactly what you're looking for, one decent workaround would be to create a spacer view at the top of the content that is the same height as the ActionBar (android:layout_height="?android:actionBarSize"). When you want overlay mode enabled, set the spacer's visibility to View.GONE, when you want it disabled, set it to View.VISIBLE.

Essa

This is definitely a valid work-around. The overlay-ness of the ActionBar is a style, and those have to be set before they are shown and don't change at runtime, so a work-around seems necessary. An issue with this work around is that getting the height of the actionbar isn't as simple as stated in the answer, you have to getActionBar().getHeight() after it's visible because the "stacked" actionbar (think actionbar tabs on a phone in portrait) isn't included in android:actionBarSize and because we don't know all the variables Android uses to decide whether or not stacked is shown : ( – Crary