android - Disable an ImageButton

Question

This looks easy, but I'm not able to disable an ImageButton. It continues to receive click events, and its appearance don't change like a standard Button would.

There are some similar questions on SO, but they don't help me.

Even with a very simple layout like this :

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <ImageButton
        android:id="@+id/btn_call"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:clickable="false"
        android:enabled="false"
        android:src="@android:drawable/sym_action_call" />

</LinearLayout>

The button is still enabled and I can click it.

What's strange is that if I change the ImageButton to a simple Button, then it works as expected. The button becomes disabled and unclickable. I don't understand. Does anyone have an idea?

Answer 1

Here's the code I use to disable an ImageButton and make it look grayed out:

/**
 * Sets the specified image buttonto the given state, while modifying or
 * "graying-out" the icon as well
 * 
 * @param enabled The state of the menu item
 * @param item The menu item to modify
 * @param iconResId The icon ID
 */
public static void setImageButtonEnabled(Context ctxt, boolean enabled, ImageButton item,
        int iconResId) {
    item.setEnabled(enabled);
    Drawable originalIcon = ctxt.getResources().getDrawable(iconResId);
    Drawable icon = enabled ? originalIcon : convertDrawableToGrayScale(originalIcon);
    item.setImageDrawable(icon);
}

/**
 * Mutates and applies a filter that converts the given drawable to a Gray
 * image. This method may be used to simulate the color of disable icons in
 * Honeycomb's ActionBar.
 * 
 * @return a mutated version of the given drawable with a color filter
 *         applied.
 */
public static Drawable convertDrawableToGrayScale(Drawable drawable) {
    if (drawable == null) {
        return null;
    }
    Drawable res = drawable.mutate();
    res.setColorFilter(Color.GRAY, Mode.SRC_IN);
    return res;
}

Simply call setImageButtonEnabled(); the only downside is you need the image's resource ID in here because it's not possible to revert a transformed icon back into the original.