Custom title bar vs. layout with header

Question

I recently thought of adding a custom title bar to my app (with "find me" and home button and such) and then I thought what is the reason of using a custom title bar at top instead of just a normal layout and using it as an include tag at the top of my XML's

What are the pros and cons of each? Is there realy a difference?

EDIT: one difference ive found so far is that the custom title bar has a shadows automaticly

Answer 1

For having back and home button titlebar, you should define normal layout for the same. Because it is easy to implement as compared to customized the native title bar. And we can create normal layout as we wants with any color/height/width/image backround/etc.

I suggest you to go with defining normal layout for the title bar instead of customizing the native title bar.

Answer 2

You can extend LinearLayout to create a new layout with your title bar. The advantage is you can then customise the title bar for different activities that use it. Some may not want to display the find button for instance.

If you use include in XML you don't have the same flexibility. I would create a custom layout with the title bar.