Understanding styles - android

I'm trying to set a custom colour for my buttons in Android application but value set for accentColor is always used as button background colour. I am trying to set a global colour for all buttons without having to specify styles or theme for each button individually.
Can you explain please how styling works in Android? I understand the basics, but overriding existing themes is never working for me :(
styles.xml
<resources>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="android:titleTextColor">#ffffff</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
<item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.Button" >
<item name="android:backgroundTint">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
<style name="AppTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />


Short answer: Try going to the source code of how the
Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar is defining the style for
the buttons and override those attributes.
Android styling works by merging all the defined attributes in a theme. For example, you have an AppTheme that includes theming for every built-in view. If you create a new theme for your button and your define just a couple of attributes, what android studio does is to merge all the attributes defined in the AppTheme with your new attributes. So if you want to override the buttons, you need to go deep and find out what are exactly the attributes defined in the general AppTheme you set in your application, they may not be the same.
For example, this is how I changed the color of all the buttons in my app since they were using a global attribute for it:
In the general styles.xml file, I put:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
...
<item name="colorButtonNormal">?myCustomColor</item>
...
</style>
But if I wanted to change the backgroundTint attribute of my buttons, I had to do this:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
...
<item name="colorButtonNormal">?myCustomColor</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/AppButtonStyle</item>
...
</style>
<style name="AppButtonStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="android:backgroundTint">?attr/colorAccent</item>
</style>
Also, check out this cool Medium post for another developer experience in this topic.


I managed to solve the issue. The main point to notice here is that I am using Theme.MaterialComponents and not AppCompact.
I have defined a new style and I set it to buttonStyle, which refers to style for AppCompact button. In order to set a style for the material button, I had to use "materialButtonStyle" instead of "buttonStyle".
All relevant properties that can be overridden for MaterialComponents can be found in material design documentation: https://www.material.io/develop/android/components/material-button/
So the final code looks like this:
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="colorSecondary">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="floatingActionButtonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Test</item>
<item name="materialButtonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Button</item>
<!--<item name="buttonStyle">#style/Widget.MaterialComponents.Button.Icon</item>-->
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="#style/Widget.MaterialComponents.Button">
<item name="android:backgroundTint">#D400EB</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.Test" parent="#style/Widget.MaterialComponents.FloatingActionButton">
<item name="backgroundTint">#A305B1</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
<item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"/>
<style name="AppTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light"/>
</resources>

Related

Change background colour of Activity

I have created an Android project and included Navigation Drawer Activity.
But the backgrounds of the activities are black.
I know I can change the background colour to white using XML or Java. But every time I do that I need to change other views as well. I checked the styles file. But it doesn't contain any tag about the background colour.
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
<item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
<style name="AppTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />
</resources>
Is there any solution for that? Thank you!

Extend your app Theme from Theme.AppCompat.Light

you can Extend your app Theme from Theme.AppCompat.Light or you can pass background color to the root view of you activity layout.

Material theme naming conventions

One of the built in templates for Android Studio will create the following themes:
<resources>
<!-- Base App Theme -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
<item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
<style name="AppTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />
</resources>
In this instance AppTheme.NoActionBar is not explicitly specifying AppTheme as the parent. Does Android use naming conventions for this and implicitly inherit the theme in this case?

Thanks to David for pointing me to the documentation:
If you want to inherit from styles that you've defined yourself, you do not have to use the parent attribute. Instead, just prefix the name of the style you want to inherit to the name of your new style, separated by a period. For example, to create a new style that inherits the CodeFont style defined above, but make the color red, you can author the new style like this:
<style name="CodeFont.Red">
<item name="android:textColor">#FF0000</item>
</style>

No resource found that matches the given name: attr 'colorBackground'

I am trying to edit the ThemeOverlay here which contains the dewfaults regarding the popups and dialogs and things like that but the problem is that it is not accepting the colorBackground attribute.
I know that some will say that I should use android:colorBackground but if I am inheriting from AppCompat then it should not be a problem.
Please help.
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppTheme.Base">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/Primary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/PrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/Accent</item>
</style>
<style name="PopupTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="colorBackground">#color/TextColor</item>
</style>
</resources>
Also, even after applying android:colorBackground it doesn't work. The error is gone but what I want to get done doesn't happen.

Try changing to :
<style name="PopupTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:background">#color/TextColor</item>
</style>
i think you are trying to change the background, why not using an image:
<item name="android:background">#drawable/your_drawable</item>

changing
<style name="PopupTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="colorBackground">#color/TextColor</item>
</style>
to
<style name="PopupTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/TextColor</item>
</style>

Widget.AppCompat.Button colorButtonNormal shows gray

I have values:styles.xml with:
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/my_color</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
and values-v21:styles.xml with:
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="android:colorButtonNormal">#color/my_color</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
And app style with
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>
But the colors appears grey instead of #color/my_color

To customize one Button only set android:theme="#style/AppTheme.Button" to your Button.
<Button
android:theme="#style/AppTheme.Button"
/>
Define your style as you did in your question
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/my_color</item>
</style>
[EDIT]
See GitHub demo here

Use Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored as a parent for your style.
<style name="RedButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/red</item>
</style>
Use android:theme, not style in buttons definitions:
<Button android:theme="#style/RedButton"/>
See AppCompat v21 > Theming and Android Support Library v22.1 - AppCompat blog posts.
(note on second post, android:theme is supported on API11-, it just doesn't do automatic inheritance from parent, you will have to specify it on each child, not an issue here but worth mentioning - see Chris Banes' post on that).

Put the xml line below in your "AppTheme" xml, rather than trying to set it from the "AppTheme.Button". This works for me on v22.1.1 with non-lollipop devices. I'm guessing this is a bug because your solution above works fine for lollipop.
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/my_color</item>

Ensure your Activity is extending AppCompatActivity, otherwise it won't handle appCompat styles properly.
class: android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity
Gradle: compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.0.1'

Use:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>
remove the android:

That works:
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
<!-- android:buttonStyle for v21+ and buttonStyle for the rest -->
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/MyCustomButton</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/MyCustomButton</item>
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/my_color</item>
</style>
<style name="MyCustomButton" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
<item name="android:textAppearance">?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium</item>
</style>
colorButtonNormal can be set in the theme style. To change the text color, size or any other feature of the button you can create a style and then using buttonStyle (less than v21) or android:buttonStyle (v21+) in the the theme style to set the button style.

v21/styles.xml
<style name="AppTheme.BlueButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
<item name="android:colorButtonNormal">#color/blue</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/text_white</item>
</style>
styles.xml
<style name="AppTheme.BlueButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/blue_tint</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/text_white</item>
</style>
Initially I'm too facing this problem. After making correction like above I got correct UI button

It seems to be a bug on Android framework that we can not change customize colorButtonNormal with Widget.AppCompat.Button theme.
A workaround solution is to define another custom AppCompat theme and use colorAccent to set colorButtonNormal.
There are two following steps.
1.Define another theme for your custom button.
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<!-- Custom button theme. -->
<style name="CustomButtonTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- Set your desired button color here. -->
<item name="colorAccent">#color/red</item>
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored</item>
</style>
</resources>
2.Apply button theme in layout.
<Button android:theme="#style/CustomButtonTheme"/>

Hi I think the parent widget you used might be not correct one, it should android:Widget.Button for API version 21 or earlier version, for later version 21 or above you should use `android:Widget.Material.Button. Let say you have default style should look see below.
res/values/styles.xml
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="android:Widget.Button">
<item name="android:background">#color/my_color</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
</resources>
For API version 21 the resource style file should look like (res/values-v21/style.xml)
<resources>
<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="android:Widget.Material.Button">
<item name="android:background">#color/my_color</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
</resources>
Thank you Let me know if you have any question.

In case you wonder why colorButtonNormal is not picked up as defined for disabled buttons, you might also need to set android:disabledAlpha to 1.0 in your theme, otherwise your color will by default blend into the button's background. Example:
<style name="MyButtonTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:disabledAlpha">1.0</item>
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/my_solid_disabled_color</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/my_solid_accent_color</item>
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/my_button_style</item>
</style>

Try buttonStyle instead of android:buttonStyle, since this is AppCompat attribute pre Lollipop, so it should be without android prefix

Styling actionBar action item button

So I have this actionBar:
How do I change the style of the MUTE button text so that it isn't bold and is smaller and is of a different color? Adding android:actionMenuTextColor to AppTheme has no effect. Defining android:actionBarStyle also has no effect, like it's being ignored! I've looked at every other answer I can find, nothing works!
These are the styles that produce the actionbar seen above:
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="#style/Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/actionbar_bgr</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/primary_dark</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/activity_bgr</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/activity_text</item>
<item name="android:textSize">#dimen/small_text_size</item>
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/NewActionBar</item>
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#color/test_pink</item>
</style>
<style name="NewActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/test_pink</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/NewActionBarTitle</item>
<item name="android:displayOptions">showHome|showTitle</item>
</style>
<style name="NewActionBarTitle">
<item name="android:textSize">#dimen/action_bar_text_size</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/test_yellow</item>
</style>

Since you're using the Theme.AppCompat you need to drop the android: in your items name. Also read the answer here and the resource linked in it.

Use android:actionMenuTextAppearance in your main theme. For example, you could set that to #style/NewActionBarTitle:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
<item name="android:actionMenuTextAppearance">#style/NewActionBarTitle</item>
</style>

Categories

Resources