Taking advantage of the translucent status bar in Android 4.4 KitKat

Question

When I released my note taking application for Android 4.0 - 4.3 I used a custom action bar color with a custom action bar icon (instead of using the standard light and dark action bars). I would like to make it so on Android 4.4, the status bar will also take on the custom color I am using in my Action Bar (which is #FFD060). Is there a way to easily change my current styles.xml to allow 4.4 to take advantage of this?

My styles.xml under my values-v19 folder is as follows:

<resources>

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

 <style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
     <item name="android:background">#ffd060</item>
     <item name="android:textColor">#fff</item>   
     <item name="android:icon">@drawable/action</item>
     <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/MyTextAppearance</item>
 </style>

 <style name="MyTextAppearance" parent="android:TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
     <item name="android:icon">@drawable/action</item>
     <item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
 </style>
</resources>

I have tried to implement:

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

It causes the contents of my application to move up, start in the status bar area and be covered by the Action Bar.

Answer 1

Update: Found this great article from Matt Gaunt (a Google Employee) on adding a Translucent theme to Android apps. It is very thorough and addresses some of the issues many people seem to be having while implementing this style: Translucent Theme in Android

Just add the following to your custom style. This prevents the shifting of the content behind the ActionBar and up to the top of the window, not sure about the bottom of the screen though.

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

Credit: Transparent Status Bar System UI on Kit-Kat

Answer 2

It looks like all you need to do is add this element to the themes you want a translucent status bar on:

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

Answer 3

Add these lines in your main theme

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
    <item name="android:windowTranslucentStatus">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowTranslucentNavigation">true</item>
    <item name="android:fitsSystemWindows">true</item>
</style>

Answer 4

You're very close you just need to update your view background colors:

<FrameLayout 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="#ffd060" >

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:background="@android:color/background_light"

        <!-- your stuff here -->
    </LinearLayout>
</FrameLayout>

Specifying a global background color in your AppBaseTheme would also work but would likely cause a mess as it would end up been the default background color for everything.

Answer 5

To change the color of the status bar to windowBackground

 <item name="android:windowBackground">@color/window_bg</item>

To add the translucent effect to status and navigation bar

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

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