Custom Android Window Title

 

Changing the window title in an Activity or globally across your entire application seems simple enough, but there is very little cohesive documentation for making it happen. You need to define custom styles and apply those styles to a custom theme.

This is placed in an xml document in the “values” folder. In the demo it is called custom_styles.xml. The name is arbitrary.

<!-- Sets the text styles -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Sets the text styles -->
<resources>
     <style name="CustomWindowTitleText" parent="android:TextAppearance.WindowTitle">
          <item name="android:textSize">20dip</item>
          <item name="android:textColor">#5599FF</item>
          <item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>
     </style>
     <!-- Changes the background color of the title bar -->
     <style name="CustomWindowTitleBackground">
           <item name="android:background">#222222</item>
     </style>

     <!-- Set the theme for the window title -->
     <!-- NOTE: setting android:textAppearence to style defined above -->
     <style name="CustomWindowTitle" parent="android:WindowTitle">
          <item name="android:textAppearance">@style/CustomWindowTitleText</item>
          <item name="android:shadowDx">0</item>
          <item name="android:shadowDy">0</item>
          <item name="android:shadowRadius">5</item>
          <item name="android:shadowColor">#1155CC</item>
      </style>
      <!-- Override properties in the default theme -->
      <!-- NOTE: you must explicitly the windowTitleSize property, the title bar will not re-size automatically, text will be clipped -->
      <style name="CustomTheme" parent="android:Theme">
           <item name="android:windowTitleSize">40dip</item>
           <item name="android:windowTitleStyle">@style/CustomWindowTitle</item>
           <item name="android:windowTitleBackgroundStyle">@style/CustomWindowTitleBackground</item>
      </style>
</resources>

Lastly, to make the change take affect you need to set the theme in the manifest file.

<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@style/CustomTheme">

from site:http://labs.makemachine.net/2010/03/custom-android-window-title/