How to set title in app bar with Navigation Architecture Component

Question

I was trying out Navigation architecture component and is now having difficulties in setting the title. How do I set the title programmatically and also how it works?

To clear my question, let's have an example, where, I've set up a simple app with MainActivity hosting the navigation host controller, the MainFragment has a button and on clicking the button it goes to DetailFragment.

The same code from another question of multiple app bars on stack-overflow.

MainActivity

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        Toolbar toolbar = findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

        // Setting up a back button
        NavController navController = Navigation.findNavController(this, R.id.nav_host);
        NavigationUI.setupActionBarWithNavController(this, navController);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onSupportNavigateUp() {
        return Navigation.findNavController(this, R.id.nav_host).navigateUp();
    }
}

MainFragment

public class MainFragment extends Fragment {

    public MainFragment() {
        // Required empty public constructor
    }

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        // Inflate the layout for this fragment
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_main, container, false);
    }

    @Override
    public void onViewCreated(@NonNull View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);
        Button buttonOne = view.findViewById(R.id.button_one);
        buttonOne.setOnClickListener(Navigation.createNavigateOnClickListener(R.id.detailFragment));
    }

}

DetailFragment

public class DetailFragment extends Fragment {

    public DetailFragment() {
        // Required empty public constructor
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    }

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        // Inflate the layout for this fragment
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_detail, container, false);
    }
}

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.coordinatorlayout.widget.CoordinatorLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:animateLayoutChanges="true"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <com.google.android.material.appbar.AppBarLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:animateLayoutChanges="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme.AppBarOverlay">

        <androidx.appcompat.widget.Toolbar
            android:id="@+id/toolbar"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
            android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
            app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay" />

    </com.google.android.material.appbar.AppBarLayout>

    <fragment
        android:id="@+id/nav_host"
        android:name="androidx.navigation.fragment.NavHostFragment"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_gravity="top"
        android:layout_marginTop="?android:attr/actionBarSize"
        app:defaultNavHost="true"
        app:layout_anchor="@id/bottom_appbar"
        app:layout_anchorGravity="top"
        app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior"
        app:navGraph="@navigation/mobile_navigation" />

    <com.google.android.material.bottomappbar.BottomAppBar
        android:id="@+id/bottom_appbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="?android:attr/actionBarSize"
        android:layout_gravity="bottom" />

    <com.google.android.material.floatingactionbutton.FloatingActionButton
        android:id="@+id/fab"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:layout_anchor="@id/bottom_appbar" />

</androidx.coordinatorlayout.widget.CoordinatorLayout>

navigation.xml

<navigation xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/mobile_navigation"
    app:startDestination="@id/mainFragment">
    <fragment
        android:id="@+id/mainFragment"
        android:name="com.example.MainFragment"
        android:label="fragment_main"
        tools:layout="@layout/fragment_main" >
        <action
            android:id="@+id/toAccountFragment"
            app:destination="@id/detailFragment" />
    </fragment>
    <fragment
        android:id="@+id/detailFragment"
        android:name="com.example.DetailFragment"
        android:label="fragment_account"
        tools:layout="@layout/fragment_detail" />
</navigation>

So when start my app, the title is "MainActivity". As usual it shows the MainFragment that contains the button to go to DetailFragment. In the DialogFragment I've set the title as:

getActivity().getSupportActionBar().setTitle("Detail");

First Problem: So clicking the button on the MainFragment to goto DetailFragment, it does go there and the title changes to "Detail". But on clicking the back button, the title changes to "fragment_main". So I added this line of code to MainFragment:

@Override
public void onViewCreated(@NonNull View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);
    // ...

    //Showing the title 
    Navigation.findNavController(view)
      .getCurrentDestination().setLabel("Hello");
}

Now the while returning back from DetailFragment to MainFragment the title changes to "Hello". But here comes the second problem, when I close the app and start again, the title changes back to "MainActivity" though it should be showing "Hello" instead, know?

Ok, then adding setTitle("Hello") in MainFrgment is not working too. For example, the activity starts and the title is "Hello", go to DetailsFragment and press the back button again, the title goes back to "fragment_main".

The only solution is to have both setTitle("Hello") along with Navigation.findNavController(view).getCurrentDestination().setLabel("Hello") in MainFragment.

So what is the proper way to show the title for fragments using Navigation Component?

Answer 1

It's actually because of:

android:label="fragment_main"

Which you have set in the xml.

So what is the proper way to show the title for Fragments using Navigation Component?

setTitle() works at this point. But, because you set label for those Fragments, it might show the label again when recreating the Activity. The solution will probably be deleting android:label and then do your things with code:

((AppCompatActivity) getActivity()).getSupportActionBar().setTitle("your title");

Or:

((AppCompatActivity) getActivity()).getSupportActionBar().setSubtitle("your subtitle");

In onCreateView().

---

Found a workaround:

interface TempToolbarTitleListener {
    fun updateTitle(title: String)
}

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity(), TempToolbarTitleListener {

    ...

    override fun updateTitle(title: String) {
        binding.toolbar.title = title
    }
}

Then:

(activity as TempToolbarTitleListener).updateTitle("custom title")

Check this out too:Dynamic ActionBar title from a Fragment using AndroidX Navigation