After hours of trying I finally found a method to separate the actionbar tabbar from the actionbar manualy. actionbar convert tabs to list navigation if there is no room But now there is one problem left. The tabs don't fill the tabbar.
EDIT The tabs are added to the actionbar by: ActionBar.Tab relatieTab = actionBar.newTab().setText("Relaties"); actionBar.addTab(relatieTab);
I just solved this problem today.
They key was using
<item name="android:padding">0dp</item>
like so...You don't need that many styles, but I didn't want to take any chunks out, which may have lead to confusion.
I also see that you already worked around this, but I figured I'd add my answer for the next person to come looking for this.
Use the following to customize the tabs in action bar:
Make sure that the activity where you are setting these navigation tabs has the following in its @android:theme
I still could not figure how how to detect whether the tabbar is separate i.e. below main action bar or merged (when in landscape OR larger screens even in portrait)
Another interesting thing to know is how to prevent tab bar from collapsing to a spinner when space is not enough.
As and when I find out answers to my questions above, will update the post. Until then hope the styles help few other ppl
Try to switch the parent. If that doesn't work try visiting this post: Stacked ActionBar tab bar not filling parent
Good luck :)