The navigation drawer is the most common feature offered by android and the navigation drawer is a UI panel that shows your app’s main navigation menu. It is also one of the important UI elements, which provides actions preferable to the users, for example changing user profile, changing settings of the application, etc. In this article, it has been discussed step by step to implement the navigation drawer in android. The code has been given in both Java and Kotlin Programming Language for Android.
The navigation drawer slides in from the left and contains the navigation destinations for the app.
The user can view the navigation drawer when the user swipes a finger from the left edge of the activity. They can also find it from the home activity by tapping the app icon in the action bar. The drawer icon is displayed on all top-level destinations that use a DrawerLayout. Have a look at the following image to get an idea about the Navigation drawer.
Steps to Implement Navigation Drawer in Android
Step 1: Create a New Android Studio Project
Create an empty activity android studio project. Refer to Android | How to Create/Start a New Project in Android Studio? on how to create an empty activity android studio project.
Step 2: Adding a dependency to the project
In this discussion, we are going to use the Material Design Navigation drawer. So add the following Material design dependency to the app-level Gradle file.
implementation 'com.google.android.material:material:1.3.0-alpha03'
Refer to the following image if unable to locate the app-level Gradle file that invokes the dependency (under project hierarchy view). After invoking the dependency click on the “Sync Now” button. Make sure the system is connected to the network so that Android Studio downloads the required files.
Step 3: Creating a menu in the menu folder
Create the menu folder under the res folder. To implement the menu. Refer to the following video to create the layout to implement the menu.
Invoke the following code in the navigation_menu.xml
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> tools:ignore="HardcodedText"> <item android:id="@+id/nav_account" android:title="My Account" /> <item android:id="@+id/nav_settings" android:title="Settings" /> <item android:id="@+id/nav_logout" android:title="Logout" /> </menu> |
Step 4: Working with the activity_main.xml File
Invoke the following code in the activity_main.xml to set up the basic things required for the Navigation Drawer.
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!-- the root view must be the DrawerLayout --> <androidx.drawerlayout.widget.DrawerLayout android:id="@+id/my_drawer_layout" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" tools:context=".MainActivity" tools:ignore="HardcodedText"> <LinearLayout android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"> <TextView android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_marginTop="128dp" android:gravity="center" android:text="Lazyroar" android:textSize="18sp" /> </LinearLayout> <!-- this the navigation view which draws and shows the navigation drawer --> <!-- include the menu created in the menu folder --> <com.google.android.material.navigation.NavigationView android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:layout_gravity="start" app:menu="@menu/navigation_menu" /> </androidx.drawerlayout.widget.DrawerLayout> |
Output UI:
One thing to be noticed is that the menu drawer icon is still not appeared on the action bar. We need to set the icon and its open-close functionality programmatically.
Step 5: Include the Open Close strings in the string.xml
Invoke the following code in the app/res/values/strings.xml file.
XML
<resources> <string name="app_name">Navigation Drawer</string> <!-- to toggle the open close button of the navigation drawer --> <string name="nav_open">Open</string> <string name="nav_close">Close</string></resources> |
Step 6: Working with the MainActivity File
- Invoke the following code in the MainActivity file to show the menu icon on the action bar and implement the open-close functionality of the navigation drawer.
- Comments are added inside the code for better understanding.
Java
import androidx.annotation.NonNull;import androidx.appcompat.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle;import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;import androidx.drawerlayout.widget.DrawerLayout;import android.os.Bundle;import android.view.MenuItem; public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity { public DrawerLayout drawerLayout; public ActionBarDrawerToggle actionBarDrawerToggle; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); // drawer layout instance to toggle the menu icon to open // drawer and back button to close drawer drawerLayout = findViewById(R.id.my_drawer_layout); actionBarDrawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle(this, drawerLayout, R.string.nav_open, R.string.nav_close); // pass the Open and Close toggle for the drawer layout listener // to toggle the button drawerLayout.addDrawerListener(actionBarDrawerToggle); actionBarDrawerToggle.syncState(); // to make the Navigation drawer icon always appear on the action bar getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true); } // override the onOptionsItemSelected() // function to implement // the item click listener callback // to open and close the navigation // drawer when the icon is clicked @Override public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) { if (actionBarDrawerToggle.onOptionsItemSelected(item)) { return true; } return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item); }} |
Kotlin
import android.os.Bundleimport android.view.MenuItemimport androidx.appcompat.app.ActionBarDrawerToggleimport androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivityimport androidx.drawerlayout.widget.DrawerLayout class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() { lateinit var drawerLayout: DrawerLayout lateinit var actionBarDrawerToggle: ActionBarDrawerToggle override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContentView(R.layout.activity_main) // drawer layout instance to toggle the menu icon to open // drawer and back button to close drawer drawerLayout = findViewById(R.id.my_drawer_layout) actionBarDrawerToggle = ActionBarDrawerToggle(this, drawerLayout, R.string.nav_open, R.string.nav_close) // pass the Open and Close toggle for the drawer layout listener // to toggle the button drawerLayout.addDrawerListener(actionBarDrawerToggle) actionBarDrawerToggle.syncState() // to make the Navigation drawer icon always appear on the action bar supportActionBar?.setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true) } // override the onOptionsItemSelected() // function to implement // the item click listener callback // to open and close the navigation // drawer when the icon is clicked override fun onOptionsItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean { return if (actionBarDrawerToggle.onOptionsItemSelected(item)) { true } else super.onOptionsItemSelected(item) }} |
