Application Bars in Native Mobile Applications

The Application Bar is a common control on every Objects for Native Mobile applications development which acts as a container of actions for the current screen displayed to the end-user.

Properties

Both of them are located under Appearance properties group.

• Show Application Bars property
• Application Bars Class property

Where can you find it?

For Menu objects it is available at the Menu node of the working tree. In this special case, the Application Bar cannot contain actions because its purpose is to display a title for such a menu. Nevertheless, the control can change its theme-class or it can be hidden by the developer. 

For Panel and Work With object, there is a special zone in the layout tab which allows the developer to customize the Application Bars. By clicking on it, GeneXus will display the properties associated with the Application Bar in such an object.

Note that the Application Bar section can contain buttons (a.k.a. actions) and by right-clicking on it, the developer can insert more Button control or Action group controls. Also, they can be dragged from the toolbox once the Application Bar section is selected. 

How can I customize actions?

Actions on the Application Bar can be customized like the buttons on the layout having a Button class, Image, Caption, and more. The default look & feel of the Application Bars depends on each platform.

• Android devices
  Actions that fit in the Application Bar are displayed in the same order as in the GeneXus layout Application Bar from left to right. A priori, you don't know which ones will fit, you only know its order. Those that stay out, will be moved to an overflow area where low priority actions take place.
   
• iOS devices
  Application Bar's behavior directly depends on the priority of the actions and the order they appear on the Application Bar. High Priority actions are shown at the top or at the bottom depending on the type of device. In iPhone, if there is no standard action (insert, save, edit, logout, etc.) and there is a high priority action, it will be the first one to appear from left to right side at the top of the Application Bar. In iPad, they will appear at the top, and if they don't fit the bottom side is used.

Examples 

Suppose you design the following layout.

And consider the following configuration:

The result on both platforms will be:

Android devices

iOS devices

See also

• Action Group Control for Panels