Develop Reference

Changing the color of the background of an Activity

I am trying to change the color of the background in my android app. At the moment when I press the button it changes the color for that specific activity and not for all the other activities. Is there a way to change it for the whole app?
public class colorPicker extends AppCompatActivity {
View view;
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_color_picker);
view = this.getWindow().getDecorView();
}
public void goPink(View v){
view.setBackgroundResource(R.color.Pink);
}
public void goGreen(View v){
view.setBackgroundResource(R.color.Green);
}
public void goYellow(View v){
view.setBackgroundResource(R.color.Yellow);
}
}

create a theme in your styles.xml and add following to that theme
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/window_background
and set android:theme="#style/YourTheme" in your
<application>
...
</application
in manifest file

In this case, You need to add few changes in your activity.
In on onCreate
if(getIntent().getExtras() != null)
{
int theme = getIntent().getIntExtra("theme", R.style.AppTheme);
setTheme(theme);
getApplication().setTheme(theme);
//recreate();
}
Condition onCLick
if(condition)
getIntent().putExtra("theme", R.style.AppTheme2);
else
getIntent().putExtra("theme", R.style.AppTheme);
and maintain 2 theme
<style name="BaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary"></item></style>
and the second theme similar to it just change the name as BaseTheme2.
But this is not suggested to change the app theme at runtime.

You could change the window background color of your app theme and don't use a background for activities or you can use a transparent background for activities.

MediaRouteActionProvider connection dialog theme

I've tried to change theme of the MediaRouteActionProvider connection dialog. I using in my application a Light theme with Dark Actionbar, so the dialog have dark gray content, but the background is dark..
When the app is connected to a device, the other dialogs are ok, they have white background with the correct theme. (For exmaple in VideoMediaRouteControllerDialog and on the disconnect dialog.)
Have you any idea, how can I change the connection dialog's theme?
Thank you very much!
//Screenshot 1: Connection dialog (with the theme issue)
//Screenshot 2: Controller dialog (with the right, needed theme)

Unfortunately that dialog doesn't follow the standard theme (Dialogs in Android are all pretty unfriendly in general but that one is among the hardest to work with). Since that dialog is provided by media router, you can only provide a customized theme if you replace that completely with your own dialog.
You can try subclassing MediaRouteDialogFactory and override onCreateChooserDialogFragment() method and pass your implementation to the ActionProvide:
mediaRouteActionProvider.setDialogFactory(yourDialogFactoryImlementation)
You can take a look at the CCL where I do a similar thing not for the chooser dialog but for the controller.

Right now theming these Dialogs have issue - wrong theme applied to Dialog
You can override themes used in MediaRouterThemeHelper
<style name="Theme.MediaRouter.Light.DarkControlPanel">
<item name="mediaRoutePlayDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_play_dark</item>
<item name="mediaRoutePauseDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_pause_dark</item>
<item name="mediaRouteCastDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_cast_dark</item>
<item name="mediaRouteAudioTrackDrawable">#drawable/ic_audiotrack</item>
<item name="mediaRouteControllerPrimaryTextStyle">#style/Widget.MediaRouter.ControllerText.Primary.Dark</item>
<item name="mediaRouteControllerSecondaryTextStyle">#style/Widget.MediaRouter.ControllerText.Secondary.Dark</item>
</style>
<style name="Theme.MediaRouter.LightControlPanel">
<item name="mediaRoutePlayDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_play_light</item>
<item name="mediaRoutePauseDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_pause_light</item>
<item name="mediaRouteCastDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_cast_light</item>
<item name="mediaRouteAudioTrackDrawable">#drawable/mr_ic_audiotrack_light</item>
<item name="mediaRouteControllerPrimaryTextStyle">#style/Widget.MediaRouter.ControllerText.Primary.Light</item>
<item name="mediaRouteControllerSecondaryTextStyle">#style/Widget.MediaRouter.ControllerText.Secondary.Light</item>
</style>

What I did was pulling the mediarouter appcompat library source from GitHub, then I fixing the theming and rebuilding the whole thing into my own custom mediarouter library.
What you're looking for in the code is MediaRouteChooserDialog, and even there, the constructor that only takes a Context as a parameter, as that's the one being called by onCreateChooserDialog() in MediaRouteChooserDialogFragment.
I was lazy so I simply put android.R.style.Theme_Holo_Light_Dialog instead of the 0 in the constructor, and it worked just fine. But of course you can always look for a more sophisticated solution.

I made it work similar as #Naddaf described it. You need to extend MediaRouteDialogFactory (you can set this to the MediaRouteActionProvider or MediaRouteButton with setDialogFactory() ) and override the method:
#Override
public MediaRouteChooserDialogFragment onCreateChooserDialogFragment(){
return new CustomMediaRouteChooserDialogFragment();
}
Then in your CustomMediaRouteChooserDialogFragment override:
#Override
public CustomMediaRouteChooserDialog onCreateChooserDialog(Context context, Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
return new CustomMediaRouteChooserDialog(context);
}
And in the CustomMediaRouteChooserDialog create a constructor, where you set your holo light theme.
public CustomMediaRouteChooserDialog(Context context)
{
super(context, android.R.style.Theme_Holo_Light_Dialog);
}
Hope this helps!

Based on the other answers, this worked for me:
set a custom action provider in the menu item
<item
android:id="#+id/media_route_menu_item"
android:title="#string/cast_menu_title"
app:actionProviderClass="MediaRouteActionProviderThemeLight"
app:showAsAction="always"/>
this is the custom action provider using a light theme
public class MediaRouteActionProviderThemeLight extends MediaRouteActionProvider {
private static final int THEME_DIALOG = android.support.v7.mediarouter.R.style.Theme_MediaRouter_Light;
/**
* Creates the action provider.
*
* #param context The context.
*/
public MediaRouteActionProviderThemeLight(Context context) {
super(context);
setDialogFactory(new MediaRouteDialogFactoryThemeLight());
}
private static class MediaRouteDialogFactoryThemeLight extends MediaRouteDialogFactory {
#NonNull
#Override
public MediaRouteChooserDialogFragment onCreateChooserDialogFragment() {
return new MediaRouteChooserDialogFragmentThemeLight();
}
#NonNull
#Override
public MediaRouteControllerDialogFragment onCreateControllerDialogFragment() {
return new MediaRouteControllerDialogFragmentThemeLight();
}
}
public static class MediaRouteChooserDialogFragmentThemeLight extends MediaRouteChooserDialogFragment {
#Override
public MediaRouteChooserDialog onCreateChooserDialog(Context context, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
return new MediaRouteChooserDialog(context, THEME_DIALOG);
}
}
public static class MediaRouteControllerDialogFragmentThemeLight extends MediaRouteControllerDialogFragment {
#Override
public MediaRouteControllerDialog onCreateControllerDialog(Context context, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
return new MediaRouteControllerDialog(context, THEME_DIALOG);
}
}
}
take into account the dialog with play/pause buttons and volume control use the material colors from your main theme, colorPrimary as background and textColorPrimary for the title/subtitle. In case your app use dark theme you should overwrite the background using the theme below, and change the THEME_DIALOG constant in the class MediaRouteActionProviderThemeLight:
<style name="CastAppThemeMediaRouter" parent="Theme.MediaRouter.Light">
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/primary_dark_material_light</item>
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/primary_material_light</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/accent_material_light</item>
</style>
To use a light theme with dark controls use the following theme. Be sure to set as primaryColor a dark color, the volume bar is set to light/dark automatically based in the primaryColor.
<style name="CastThemeMediaRouter" parent="Theme.MediaRouter.Light.DarkControlPanel">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/black</item>
</style>

Android Custom Icon ShareActionProvider?

i'm using a ShareActionProvider, but i want to custom the icon (i want to change the color, because currently, it's white).
I'm using this code :
mShareActionProvider = (ShareActionProvider) item.getActionProvider();
Intent myIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
myIntent.setType("text/plain");
myIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, str_share);
mShareActionProvider.setShareIntent(myIntent);
The XML :
<item
android:id="#+id/menu_item_share"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
android:title="#string/titlePartager"
android:actionProviderClass="android.widget.ShareActionProvider"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_share"/>
How can i change the icon (or color) ?
thx,

Edit / Short answer: if using AppCompat's ShareActionProvider, just provide a new actionModeShareDrawable in your theme definition.
<style name="MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="actionModeShareDrawable">#drawable/my_share_drawable</item>
</style>
If not using AppCompat, then this resource is defined for Lollipor or newer, but not for previous versions.
Below is answer for the native ShareActionProvider (which was the original scope of this question).
To change this image, you should change the value of actionModeShareDrawable for your app's theme. Take a look at the ShareActionProvider's onCreateActionView() method:
public View onCreateActionView() {
// Create the view and set its data model.
...
// Lookup and set the expand action icon.
TypedValue outTypedValue = new TypedValue();
mContext.getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.actionModeShareDrawable, outTypedValue, true);
Drawable drawable = mContext.getResources().getDrawable(outTypedValue.resourceId);
...
Unfortunately this attribute is not public in the Android framework (though it is if using compatibility libraries, such as AppCompat or ActionBarSherlock). In that case, it's just a matter of overriding that value for the theme.
If you are using neither of these libraries, the only solution (that I know of) is to create a subclass of ShareActionProvider and reimplement the onCreateActionView() method. You can then use whatever drawable you want instead.
EDIT However this is further complicated by the fact that the implementation of onCreateActionView() uses other classes that are not public either. To avoid duplicating a lot of code, you can just change the icon via reflection, like this:
public class MyShareActionProvider extends ShareActionProvider
{
private final Context mContext;
public MyShareActionProvider(Context context)
{
super(context);
mContext = context;
}
#Override
public View onCreateActionView()
{
View view = super.onCreateActionView();
if (view != null)
{
try
{
Drawable icon = ... // the drawable you want (you can use mContext to get it from resources)
Method method = view.getClass().getMethod("setExpandActivityOverflowButtonDrawable", Drawable.class);
method.invoke(view, icon);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Log.e("MyShareActionProvider", "onCreateActionView", e);
}
}
return view;
}
}
As with any solutions that involve reflection, this may be brittle if the internal implementation of ShareActionProvider changes in the future.

To change the icon for the ShareActionProvider you need to extend the AppCompat theme and set your custom icon to "actionModeShareDrawable":
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="actionModeShareDrawable">#drawable/ic_share</item>
</style>

You can change background color by defining custom style, as:
<resources>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">ANY_HEX_COLOR_CODE</item>
</style>
</resources>
Now you need to set "MyTheme" as theme for application / activity.

How to create android game loading screen

When you start android app Main activity starts with white background and black header with your app name in left corner. Like this
How to wholly remove this (when app is started not to show this) and add custom loading progress bar or some logo to the screen?

How about creating a splash dialog with custom layout containing progress bar?
In your main activity do something like this
private SplashDialog mSplashDialog;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
showSplashScreen();
setContentView(R.layout.yourmainlayout);
}
protected void removeSplashScreen() {
if (mSplashDialog != null) {
mSplashDialog.dismiss();
mSplashDialog = null;
}
}
protected void showSplashScreen() {
mSplashDialog = new SplashDialog(this, R.style.splash_dialog);
mSplashDialog.setCancelable(false);
mSplashDialog.show();
}
Create custom dialog
public class SplashDialog extends Dialog {
private ProgressBar mProgressBar;
public SplashDialog(Context context, int theme) {
super(context, theme);
setContentView(R.layout.splash_dialog);
mProgressBar = (ProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.splash_progress);
}
public void setProgress(int progress) {
mProgressBar.setProgress(progress);
}
}
And add style to that will let dialog fill all screen.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="splash_dialog">
<item name="android:padding">0dp</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="android:windowFrame">#null</item>
</style>
</resources>
To change dialog's progress value call mSplashDialog.setProgress(int progress).
When your data is loaded call removeSplashScreen().

I think what you're looking for can be found here:
how to change the splash screen

What worked for me (since I don't have much load up on start actually I didn't need splash screen at all) is changing res/values/styles.xml :
<resources>
<color name="custom_theme_color">#000000</color>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light" >
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/custom_theme_color</item>
</style>
</resources>
It just start with black screen witch goes to full screen (after 1-2 sec) when it is all loaded.
It looks very "profesional".

How do I dynamically change the text color of a theme?

I would like the change the text color of all TextViews once the user chooses a different font color.
I can achieve this by linking all associated TextViews and call setTextColor on them.
But I would like to know if this could also be done through customizing Themes?

This is an old question,
but nevertheless,
I seem to have an answer.
In its simplest form.
<style name="BaseTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Black">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/black</item>
</style>
<style name="InvertedTheme" parent="BaseTheme">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/black</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/white</item>
</style>
In your androidmanifest set;
<activity
android:name=".SomeActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#style/BaseTheme" />
Then in your SomeActivity.java;
public class SomeActivity extends Activity {
static final String INVERTED_EXTRA = "inverted";
private void invertTheme() {
// to make the theme take effect we need to restart the activity
Intent inverted = new Intent(this, SomeActivity.class);
inverted.putExtra(INVERTED_EXTRA, true);
startActivity(inverted);
}
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
// must be before the setContentView
if (getIntent().getBooleanExtra(INVERTED_EXTRA, false))
setTheme(R.style.InvertedTheme);
}
setContentView(R.layout.some_layout);
...
I tried without starting a new activity,
but it doesn't reset the colors.