Navigation Drawer with Action Bar

Question

I am looking for creating an dvd library in android, The design is having navigation drawer for quick navigation, and one action bar which is having only new DVD list count ie 4 in image(which is dynamically updated).

Let me share you

First Thing which make confusion for me

why do i need action BAR ? (to just display new items and navigation drawer icon)

I am not sure on which pattern i should follow. I need your input for this. If I need to go with this approach how to achieve custom action bar with navigation drawer on activity.

Answer 1

IMO there's no reason not to adhere to the actionbar pattern. You anyway need a place where to trigger the open/close of the drawer from. Having the actionbar matches the guidelines and makes the usage of the app intuitive for the user (as it is already used to the pattern).

Also having the actionbar allows you to brand your app more (by keeping keeping the app logo always visible and styling the action bar with your brand colors) and to keep consistency in case you need to add actions in one of the low-level screens (or in the main one, maybe in a future release)

To add the counter to the action bar, see the actionview section at http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html