Android Material: Status bar color won't change

I'm developing an simple app to test the material design. I'm using com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.0 and my activity looks like:

public class MyActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
   ...
}

The layout is defined as:

<LinearLayout 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"
    tools:context=".MyActivity">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="128dp"
        android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimaryDark"/>
</LinearLayout>

Now i defined my theme following material guidelines:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary500</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark700</item>
</style>

I'd like to change the status bar color in pre Android 5 and set it to colorPrimaryDark but i can't find the way. I tried using:

getWindow().setStatusBarColor(..)

but setStatusBar color is available from level 21. Why if i define a colorPrimaryDark in my theme and use appcompact the status bar doesn't change color? Anyone can help?

Solution 1:

The status bar is a system window owned by the operating system. On pre-5.0 Android devices, applications do not have permission to alter its color, so this is not something that the AppCompat library can support for older platform versions. The best AppCompat can do is provide support for coloring the ActionBar and other common UI widgets within the application.

Solution 2:

While colouring the status bar is not supported <5.0, on 4.4 you can use a work around to achieve a darker colour:

Make the status bar translucent

<item name="android:windowTranslucentStatus">true</item>

Then use AppCompat's Toolbar for your appbar, making sure that it fits system windows:

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    ...
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true"/>

Make sure to set your toolbar as your activity's toolbar:

protected void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    ...
    toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
    setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

The toolbar stretches underneath the status bar, and the semi translucency of the status bar makes it appear to be a darker secondary colour. If that's not the colour you want, this combination allows you to fit a view underneath your status bar sporting the background colour of your choice (though it's still tinted darker by the status bar).

Kind of an edge case workaround due to 4.4 only, but there ya go.

Solution 3:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
    getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DRAWS_SYSTEM_BAR_BACKGROUNDS);
    getWindow().setStatusBarColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.actionbar));
}

Put this code in your Activity's onCreate method. This helped me.

Solution 4:

As others have also mentioned, this can be readily solved by adding the following to the onCreate() of the Activity:

    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
        getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DRAWS_SYSTEM_BAR_BACKGROUNDS);
        getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TRANSLUCENT_STATUS);
        getWindow().setStatusBarColor(ContextCompat.getColor(this, R.color.primary_dark));
    }

However, the important point I want to add here is that in some cases, even the above does not change the status bar color. For example, when using MikePenz library for Navigation Drawer, it implicityly overrides the status bar color, so that you need to manually add the following for it to work:

.withStatusBarColorRes(R.color.status_bar_color)

Solution 5:

Status bar coloring is not supported in AppCompat v7:21.0.0.

From the Android developers blog post

On older platforms, AppCompat emulates the color theming where possible. At the moment this is limited to coloring the action bar and some widgets.

This means the AppCompat lib will only color status bars on Lollipop and above.