Customize Navigation Tabs in Android Action bar

Question

I have an Android app that Im making now using one of the default templates: I believe it was Fixed Tabs + Swipe.

A screenshot of the current navigation bar is below (I marked the navigation bars in red for this SO question):

My question is, is it possible to customize these navigation tabs? I would like to increase their height and also add an icon ideally on top of the text. Also, Id like to change the colors.

Something like below:

|           |          |            |
|  icon     |  icon    |   icon     |
|           |          |            |
|           |          |            |
|  HOME     |   NEW    |  FAVORITE  |

I can't find any clear documentation that states that this type of navigation tabbar can be customized. Is this pretty much set as is?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Try the code below to add icons to Actionbar tabs

    ActionBar bar = getSupportActionBar();
    bar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);

    ActionBar.Tab tab1 = bar.newTab();
    ActionBar.Tab tab2 = bar.newTab();
    ActionBar.Tab tab3 = bar.newTab();

    tab1.setIcon(R.drawable.homeicon);

    tab2.setIcon(R.drawable.newicon);

    tab3.setIcon(R.drawable.favicon);

And use icons like below (text should be bottom of image)