How to Hide Action Bar Before Activity Is Created, and Then Show It Again

How to hide the actionbar before the Activity is loaded?

try this in manifest file

<activity
        android:name="yourActivityName"
        android:label="your label"
        android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.NoActionBar.Fullscreen" >

    </activity>

ActionBarCompat: Hide ActionBar before activity is created (bug?)

I got stuck with the same problem and, it seems to me, found a reason of this strange behavior. I looked through source of support library and got this:

Appcompat checks a value of mHasActionBar variable before creating new action bar in ActionBarActivityDelegate

final ActionBar getSupportActionBar() {
    // The Action Bar should be lazily created as mHasActionBar or mOverlayActionBar
    // could change after onCreate
    if (mHasActionBar || mOverlayActionBar) {
        if (mActionBar == null) {
            mActionBar = createSupportActionBar();
    ...

And we can change its value by calling supportRequestWindowFeature(int featureId) which is delegated by ActionBarActivity to a ActionBarActivityDelegate.

There are base delegate class ActionBarDelegateBase and its descendants ActionBarDelegateHC, ActionBarActivityDelegateICS, ActionBarActivityJB, one of which is chosen according to a version of running android. And method supportRequestWindowFeature is actually works fine almost in all of them, but it's overridden in ActionBarActivityDelegateICS like that

@Override
public boolean supportRequestWindowFeature(int featureId) {
    return mActivity.requestWindowFeature(featureId);
}

So it has no effect on the variable mHasActionBar, that's why getSupportActionBar() returns null.

We almost there. I came to two different solutions.

First way

import source project of appcompat from git

change overridden method in ActionBarActivityDelegateICS.java to something like this

@Override
public boolean supportRequestWindowFeature(int featureId) {
    boolean result = mActivity.requestWindowFeature(featureId);
    if (result) {
        switch (featureId) {
        case WindowCompat.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR:
            mHasActionBar = true;
        case WindowCompat.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY:
            mOverlayActionBar = true;
        }
    }
    return result;
}

place this line in activity's onCreate method before getSupportActionBar()
```
supportRequestWindowFeature(WindowCompat.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);
```

Second way

import project of appcompat from android SDK (which is with empty src directory)

add this method to your activity

private void requestFeature() {
    try {
        Field fieldImpl = ActionBarActivity.class.getDeclaredField("mImpl");
        fieldImpl.setAccessible(true);
        Object impl = fieldImpl.get(this);

        Class<?> cls = Class.forName("android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivityDelegate");

        Field fieldHasActionBar = cls.getDeclaredField("mHasActionBar");
        fieldHasActionBar.setAccessible(true);
        fieldHasActionBar.setBoolean(impl, true);

    } catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
        Log.e(LOG_TAG, e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
    } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
        Log.e(LOG_TAG, e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
        Log.e(LOG_TAG, e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e(LOG_TAG, e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
    }
}

call requestFeature() in onCreate method of your activity like this

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 11) {
    requestFeature();
}
supportRequestWindowFeature(WindowCompat.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

I used the second way. That's all.

How To Show and hide ActionBar with AppCompat v.7

In the activities where you want to have no action bar use a theme derived from Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar or Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar. This activity will never be able to show the action bar unless you supply your own via setSupportActionBar(Toolbar).

In the activities where you want to have the action bar use a theme derived from Theme.AppCompat, Theme.AppCompat.Light or Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar. This will allow you to dynamically hide or show the action bar in such activity. You will not be able to supply your own action bar using these themes.

When working with appcompat-v7 action bar you need to obtain it by calling getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar().

How to Show/Hide Action Bar item programmatically via Click Event

In your onCreateOptionsMenu:

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_items, menu);
       if (hideIcon){
          menu.findItem(R.id.action_share).setVisible(false);
       }else{
          menu.findItem(R.id.action_share).setVisible(true);
       }
        return true;
    }

In method where you want to show/hide the icon, just set the boolean hideIcon to true or false and call :

invalidateOptionsMenu();

to refresh the menu.

How to hide action bar buttons in certain activity?

When you switch between Activities every time you enter one it's onCreateOptionsMenu is called. It is where you inflate your menu. If you want to not have action bar buttons in MainActivity then inflate empty menu in it. In SubActivity inflate menu with action bar buttons.

MainActivity.java

package com.example.user.twoactivities;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;


public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

        @Override
        protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
            super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
            setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
            ((Button) findViewById(R.id.button)).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(View v) {
                    startActivity(new Intent(MainActivity.this, SubActivity.class));
                }
            });
        }


        @Override
        public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
            // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
            getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
            return true;
        }

    }

SubActivity.javva

package com.example.user.twoactivities;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class SubActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_sub);
        ((Button) findViewById(R.id.button)).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                startActivity(new Intent(SubActivity.this, MainActivity.class));
            }
        });
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.subactivity_menu, menu);
        return true;
    }

}

activity_main.xml

<RelativeLayout 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"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <Button android:id="@+id/button"
        android:text="Go to SubActivity"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</RelativeLayout>

activity_sub.xml

<RelativeLayout 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"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <Button android:id="@+id/button"
        android:text="Go to MainActivity"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</RelativeLayout>

menu_main.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" tools:context=".MainActivity">
</menu>

subactivity_menu.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" tools:context=".MainActivity">
    <item android:id="@+id/action_settings" android:title="@string/action_settings" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:orderInCategory="100" app:showAsAction="always" />
</menu>

Don't forget to add MainActivity and SubActivity to Manifest file.

Android hiding custom ActionBar

Create a theme whose parent is Theme.Holo.Light.NoActionBar. Assign it to your login activity with android:theme parameter.