Close Status Bar When Opened: Android

I am trying to come up with some ways of disabling the status bar without hiding it completely. This is an introlude attempt at disabling status bars in 3rd party apps. For now, I

Solution 1:

I have found answer to my question. First, I was missing the following permission

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR" />

With that permission, the following code now works really well.

@Override
public void onWindowFocusChanged(boolean hasFocus) {
    Log.i(TAG, "onWindowFocusChanged()");
    try {
        if (!hasFocus) {
            Log.d(TAG, "close status bar attempt");
            //option 1
            int currentApiVersion = android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT;
            Object service = getSystemService("statusbar");
            Class<?> statusbarManager = Class
                    .forName("android.app.StatusBarManager");

            if (currentApiVersion <= 16) {
                Method collapse = statusbarManager.getMethod("collapse");
                collapse.setAccessible(true);
                collapse.invoke(service);
            } else {
                Method collapse = statusbarManager.getMethod("collapsePanels");
                collapse.setAccessible(true);
                collapse.invoke(service);
            }
            // option 2
            Intent it = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS);
            mContext.sendBroadcast(it); 

        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        ex.printStackTrace();
    }
}

If you notice, there is a second option as well that I found to be working good. You can comment out option 1 if you want to use option 2, or vise versa. Both accomplish the same thing, although I believe option 2 is better.

Intent it = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS);
mContext.sendBroadcast(it); 

The only downfall I found is that it is slow(er) when closing. However, both methods collapse quick enough to where no one can click on any notifications or options in the status bar. Hopefully this is helpful to someone else. Good luck, Cheers!

Solution 2:

I am also working on the same thing. With Android 5.0 Lolipop they have released Screen Pinning mode (which is essentially Kiosk mode) which does a few things:

• The status bar is blank, and user notifications and status information are hidden.
• The Home and Recent Apps buttons are hidden.
• Other apps cannot launch new activities.
• The current app can start new activities, as long as doing so does not create new tasks.
• When screen pinning is invoked by a device owner, the user remains locked to your app until the app calls stopLockTask().
• If screen pinning is activity by another app that is not a device owner or by the user directly, the user can exit by holding both the Back and Recent buttons.

You can read about it further in the Android 5.0 Lolipop release documentation.

However, if you are looking for a more controlable solution, then you may want to create a custom ROM. Here is a great overview on making Kiosk applications (which also require disabling status bar).

Developing Kiosk Mode Applications in Android Tutorial

Solution 3:

Here's an updated answer if anyone is still looking for a solution to something like this: https://developer.android.com/training/system-ui/immersive.html

For me, I added the following in my onResume() method:

View decorView = getWindow().getDecorView();
    int uiOptions = View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE_STICKY;
    decorView.setSystemUiVisibility(uiOptions);

This allows the status bar to stay hidden but the user can still access it by swiping the edge of the screen. Then after a few seconds of inactivity it will collapse and disappear again!