How do I change the up action icon into button with text on Android?

Question

I would like to change the style of the Up action button. It currently looks like this:

After much exploration on stack overflow and the Android documentation, I have seen examples where the Up action button icon can be swapped for a custom icon, like so:

getSupportActionBar().setHomeAsUpIndicator(R.drawable.ic_yourindicator);

This, however, is not what I'm looking for. I would like to replace the Up action button's icon with text, such as the button on the right side of the above screenshot.

Is there a way (from the java side) for me to replace this arrow icon with text that says "Cancel" without modifying or creating any drawable resources or layout files?

Answer 1

You cannot do that without a custom action bar layout in Android. In order to set a custom action bar, you need to do the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="64dp"
    android:background="@android:color/white">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/title"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/cancel_button"
        android:text="Contact"
        android:textColor="@android:color/black"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/cancel_button"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:layout_margin="16dp"
        android:text="Cancel"
        android:textColor="@android:color/black" />
</RelativeLayout>

And set the layout in your action bar from your activity like the following.

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    ActionBar mActionBar = getSupportActionBar();
    mActionBar.setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(false);
    mActionBar.setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
    LayoutInflater mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(this);

    View mCustomView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_action_bar_layout, null);
    TextView cancelButton = (TextView) mCustomView.findViewById(R.id.cancel_button);
    cancelButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            finish();
        }
    });

    mActionBar.setCustomView(mCustomView);
    mActionBar.setDisplayShowCustomEnabled(true);
}

Hope that helps!