Badges

Badges show notifications, counts, or status information on navigation items and icons. There are two variants of badges.

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1. Small badge
2. Large badge

Note: Images use various dynamic color schemes.

Design & API documentation

• Material 3 (M3) spec
• API reference

Anatomy

1. Small badge
2. Large badge container
3. Large badge label

More details on anatomy items in the component guidelines.

Key properties

BadgeDrawable Attributes

Note: If both app:badgeText and app:number are specified, the badge label will be app:badgeText.

Code implementation

Before you can use Material badges, you need to add a dependency to the Material components for Android library. For more information, go to the Getting started page.

Note: This component is still under development and may not support the full range of customization Material Android components generally support, for instance, themed attributes.

A BadgeDrawable represents dynamic information such as a number of pending requests in a BottomNavigationView or TabLayout.

Adding badges

1. Small badge on a navigation item
2. Large badge on a navigation item
3. Large badge with max characters on a navigation item

API and source code:

• BadgeDrawable
  • Class definition
  • Class source
• BadgeUtils
  • Class definition
  • Class source

Create an instance of BadgeDrawable by calling create(Context) or createFromAttributes(Context, AttributeSet, int, int)}.

The approach used to add and display a BadgeDrawable on top of its anchor view depends on the API level:

In API 18+ (APIs supported by ViewOverlay)

1. Add BadgeDrawable as a ViewOverlay to the desired anchor view.
2. Update the BadgeDrawable's coordinates (center and bounds) based on its anchor view using #updateBadgeCoordinates(View).

Both steps have been encapsulated in a util method:

BadgeUtils.attachBadgeDrawable(badgeDrawable, anchor);

In Pre API-18

1. Set BadgeDrawable as the foreground of the anchor view's FrameLayout ancestor.
2. Update the BadgeDrawable's coordinates (center and bounds) based on its anchor view, relative to its FrameLayout ancestor's coordinate space.

Option 1: BadgeDrawable will dynamically create and wrap the anchor view in a FrameLayout, then insert the FrameLayout into the original anchor view position in the view hierarchy. Same syntax as API 18+

BadgeUtils.attachBadgeDrawable(badgeDrawable, anchor);

Option 2: If you do not want BadgeDrawable to modify your view hierarchy, you can specify a FrameLayout to display the badge instead.

BadgeUtils.attachBadgeDrawable(badgeDrawable, anchor, anchorFrameLayoutParent);

BadgeDrawable gravity modes

BadgeDrawable offers two gravity modes to control how the badge aligns with its anchor view. By default, (TOP_END) badge aligns with the top and end edges of the anchor (with some offsets). Alternatively, you can use TOP_START to align the badge with the top and start edges of the anchor. Note that BOTTOM_START and BOTTOM_END are deprecated and not recommended for use.

BadgeDrawable placement and offsets

By default, BadgeDrawable is aligned with the top and end edges of its anchor view (with some offsets if offsetAlignmentMode is legacy). Call setBadgeGravity(int) to change it to one of the other supported modes. To adjust the badge's offsets relative to the anchor's center, use setHorizontalOffset(int) or setVerticalOffset(int)

Regardless of offsets, badges are automatically moved to within the bounds of its first ancestor view that does not clip its children, to ensure that the badge is not clipped if there is enough space.

TalkBack support

BadgeDrawable provides a getter for its content description, which is based on the displayed number or text (if any). To specify the content description, the developer is provided with the following methods: setContentDescriptionForText(CharSequence) setContentDescriptionQuantityStringsResource(@PluralsRes int) setContentDescriptionExceedsMaxBadgeNumberStringResource(@StringRes int) setContentDescriptionNumberless(CharSequence)