Develop Reference

Set no item pre-selected in Bottom Navigation view

I'm adding the new Bottom Navigation View from the material design library to a project, and I would like to have no pre selected item by default.
For now first item is selected by default.
I have used
mBottomNavigation.getMenu().getItem(0).setChecked(false);
but when doing it in for loop for all the menu item last item is selected again by default.
Is there a way we can achieve this?

Not sure about the proper way to achieve this but a work around will help-
setCheckable(false) for first item
navigation.getMenu().getItem(0).setCheckable(false);
item.setCheckable(true) inside onNavigationItemSelected()
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case R.id.navigation_home:
item.setCheckable(true);
mTextMessage.setText(R.string.title_home);
return true;
}
return false;
}

I came up with another solution
Just add one more item to your menu.xml file for example
This is my bottom_nav_menu.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item
android:id="#+id/navigation_home"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_home_black_24dp"
android:title="#string/home" />
<item
android:id="#+id/navigation_cart"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_shopping_cart_black_24dp"
android:title="#string/cart" />
<item
android:id="#+id/navigation_wishlist"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_favorite_border_black_24dp"
android:title="#string/wish_list" />
<item
android:id="#+id/navigation_account"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_person_black_24dp"
android:title="#string/account" />
<!-- Our invisible item -->
<item
android:id="#+id/invisible"
android:visible="false"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_person_black_24dp"
android:title="#string/account" />
</menu>
Notice that I have added that item at last position and given it an id invisible and also set it's visibility to false.
Now, In the activity just set selected item id to this id like this
bottomNavMenu.setSelectedItemId(R.id.invisible);
Thanks

XML Code
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item android:id="#+id/nav_item1" />
<item android:id="#+id/nav_item2" />
<item android:id="#+id/nav_item3" />
<item android:id="#+id/nav_item4" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_item5"
android:icon="#drawable/icon_item5"
android:title="Home"
android:visible="false"/>
</group>
JAVA Code
bottomNavigationView.getMenu().getItem(4).setChecked(true);
bottomNavigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(new BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
#Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(#NonNull MenuItem menuItem) {
switch (menuItem.getItemId()) {
case R.id.nav_item1:
return true;
case R.id.nav_item2:
return true;
case R.id.nav_item3:
return true;
case R.id.nav_item4:
return true;
}
// Default operation you want to perform
return false;
}
});

If anyone interested in a nice Kotlin solution, here's mine:
//disable the preselected first item
//<navigation> is the bottom navigation view
navigation.menu.getItem(0).isCheckable=false
Then in the selection listener, make sure that you'll show the user what he selected
BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener { item: MenuItem ->
when (item.itemId) {
R.id.option1 -> {
item.isCheckable=true //here is the magic
//notify the listener
return#OnNavigationItemSelectedListener true
}
R.id.option2 ->{
item.isCheckable=true
//notify the listener
return#OnNavigationItemSelectedListener true
}
R.id.option3 ->{
//go to forgot user fragment
item.isCheckable=true
//notify the listener
return#OnNavigationItemSelectedListener true
}
else -> false
}
}
Finally , make a selector color so you can change easily in color
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_checked="true"
android:color="#color/colorAccent" />
<item android:color="#color/colorPrimary" />
And add the selector to the navigation view
app:itemIconTint="#color/navigation_colors"
app:itemTextColor="#color/navigation_colors"
Now, if you need to change the colours, just change the selector.

Add this line in your onCreate method
mBottomNavigation.setSelectedItemId("ID OF YOUR MENU ITEM");

Use setCheckable instead of setChecked(false) in line:
mBottomNavigation.getMenu().getItem(0).setCheckable(false);
It works for me.

I've created a sample project and by default there is no checked item. Just make sure you don't have any navigationView.setCheckedItem(R.id.id) on your code.

My solution was to select a different tab and immediately after select the tab I initially wanted.
bottomNavigationView.selectedItemId = R.id.dummy_tab
bottomNavigationView.selectedItemId = R.id.tab_to_select
The setOnItemReselectedListener disables reselect tab selections, but the navigationView has a default tab selected and don't render after creation because is invoking setOnItemReselectedListener
Tried the invisible solution but didn't work with programmatically bottomMenu creation.

Old question, but if you still facing issue - just use this:
bottomNavigationView.getMenu().getItem(0).setCheckable(false);
And it:
bottomNavigationView.setOnItemReselectedListener(new NavigationBarView.OnItemReselectedListener() {
#Override
public void onNavigationItemReselected(#NonNull MenuItem item) {
if (item.getItemId() == R.id.navigation_home) {
item.setCheckable(true);
}
}
});

I combined the solution mentioned by #Ashish Kumar and resolved my query and
private void customizeBottomBar() {
mBottomNavigation.getMenu().getItem(0)
.setIcon(ContextCompat.getDrawable(activity, R.drawable.ic_reserve_normal));
changeMenuItemCheckedStateColor(mBottomNavigation, getUnCheckedColor(), getUnCheckedColor());
}
/**
* Method to change the color state of bottom bar view
* #param bottomNavigationView - BottomNavigation view instance
* #param checkedColorHex int value of checked color code
* #param uncheckedColorHex int value of unchecked color code
*/
void changeMenuItemCheckedStateColor(BottomNavigationView bottomNavigationView,
int checkedColorHex, int uncheckedColorHex) {
int[][] states = new int[][]{
new int[]{-android.R.attr.state_checked}, // unchecked
new int[]{android.R.attr.state_checked}, // checked
};
int[] colors = new int[]{
uncheckedColorHex,
checkedColorHex
};
ColorStateList colorStateList = new ColorStateList(states, colors);
bottomNavigationView.setItemTextColor(colorStateList);
bottomNavigationView.setItemIconTintList(colorStateList);
}

How to uncheck checked items in Navigation View?

I know it's possible to highlight a navigation view item by calling setCheckedItem() or return true value in onNavigationItemSelected to display the item as the selected item, but How can I uncheck the checked items of a navigation view?

This will uncheck the items:
int size = mNavigationView.getMenu().size();
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
mNavigationView.getMenu().getItem(i).setCheckable(false);
}

I saw #arsent solution and gave it a try, and it will indeed do what you want, which is to unselect all the items... but, I was having an issue in the following scenario:
Select menu item 1 (using NavigationView#setCheckedItem)
Unselect all the items as per #arsent's solution
Select menu item 1 again (using NavigationView#setCheckedItem)
In this scenario, item 1 will not be marked as checked. That's because internally the navigation view keeps track of the previously selected item set in step 1, which doesn't change in step 2, and it just skips step 3 because the previously selected item is the same as the one we're selecting now.
My suggestion (and an alternative solution) to avoid this is just having a dummy invisible item and use NavigationView#setCheckedItem to select that item whenever you want to unselect all, like so
<item
android:id="#+id/menu_none"
android:title=""
android:visible="false"/>
To unselect all just do
mNavigationView.setCheckedItem(R.id.menu_none);

To uncheck all MenuItems including SubMenu items you have to use recursion -
private void unCheckAllMenuItems(#NonNull final Menu menu) {
int size = menu.size();
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
final MenuItem item = menu.getItem(i);
if(item.hasSubMenu()) {
// Un check sub menu items
unCheckAllMenuItems(item.getSubMenu());
} else {
item.setChecked(false);
}
}
}
Call above method for unchecking all items, like below -
unCheckAllMenuItems(navigationView.getMenu());

just make your items non checkable like so
<item
android:id="#+id/profile_item"
android:checkable="false"
android:title="#string/profile"/>

Quoting #Codeversed, there is "no need to loop menu items with added overhead!". But, there is no need to create multiple groups (in this case he is creating the #+id/grp1 and #+id/grp2) to uncheck a previous checked item.
You can simple add a single group for all elements with the android:checkableBehavior, like this:
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item
android:id="#+id/id1"
android:checked="true"
android:icon="#drawable/drawable1"
android:title="#string/string1" />
<item
android:id="#+id/id2"
android:icon="#drawable/drawable2"
android:title="#string/string2" />
</group>

Joao's solutions didn't not work for me as totally expected. This would lead to a blank space from unchecked Item View on my Navigation.
Just make sure to set the view as gone:
<item
android:id="#+id/your_menu_item_id_to_hide"
android:title=""
android:visible="false"/>
bottomNavigationView.getMenu().findItem(R.id.your_menu_item_id_to_hide).setChecked(true);
bottomNavigationView.findViewById(R.id.your_menu_item_id_to_hide).setVisibility(View.GONE);
Arsent solution is not necessary in this case.

All you need to do is surround your groups like this:
<group>
<group
android:id="#+id/grp1">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_profile"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_account_circle_24dp"
android:title="#string/profile" />
</group>
<group
android:id="#+id/grp2">
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_settings"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_settings_24dp"
android:title="#string/settings" />
<item
android:id="#+id/nav_help"
android:icon="#drawable/topic_help"
android:title="#string/help_feedback" />
</group>
</group>
No need to loop menu items with added overhead!

I guess someone like me use those methods just like this
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(#NonNull MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case R.id.nav_today:
break;
case R.id.nav_calendar:
navigationView.getMenu().performIdentifierAction(R.id.nav_today, 0);
navigationView.getMenu().getItem(0).setChecked(true);//or
navigationView.setCheckedItem(R.id.nav_today);//or
drawerLayout.closeDrawers();
break;
}
return true;
}
Trying to check R.id.nav_today after you clicked on R.id.nav_calendar, (btw: checkableBehavior="single"), unfortunately it will not work.
That is because after your code navigationView.setCheckedItem(R.id.nav_today) be called then the R.id.nav_today will be checked immediately, but after this, your click on R.id.nav_calendar will check itself.
That is why whatever methods you use seem never work at all. It is work, but be override immediately.

To uncheck it inside NavigationItemSelectedListener I had to use post (to UI thread):
App.getHandler().post(() -> menuItem.setChecked(false));
Full example:
NavigationView navigationView = findViewById(R.id.nav_view);
navigationView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(
menuItem -> {
menuItem.setChecked(true);
mDrawerLayout.closeDrawers();
switch (menuItem.getItemId()) {
...
}
App.getHandler().post(() -> menuItem.setChecked(false));
return true;
});
p.s. in my case App.getHandler() returns Handler instance for UI Thread Lopper

I had to use a combination of all the solutions mentioned here. In my case, I want to open an URL Intent when the Item is clicked (open a Browser). The clicked item should get unchecked after the click and reset to the item before. Important is to understand, that you cannot uncheck an item during the click listener event, since the checked state will be handled afterwards. So this is my solution in Kotlin:
val item = navigationView.menu.findItem(R.id.menu_item)
item.setOnMenuItemClickListener {
val oldItem = navigationView.checkedItem
rootView.postDelayed({ // you can use here any View to post a Runnable with a delay
navigationView.setCheckedItem(oldItem?.itemId ?: R.id.default_item)
}, 500)
browseURL("https://www.example.com")
true
}
I use a Navigation Drawer in combination with the Jetpack Navigation.

i combine #arsent and #Rahul answers and write this code:
private void NavigationView_NavigationItemSelected(object sender, NavigationView.NavigationItemSelectedEventArgs e)
{
var size = navigationView.Menu.Size();
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
{
var item= navigationView.Menu.GetItem(i).SetChecked(false);
if (item.HasSubMenu)
{
for (int j = 0; j < item.SubMenu.Size(); j++)
{
item.SubMenu.GetItem(j).SetChecked(false);
}
}
}
e.MenuItem.SetChecked(true);
drawerLayout.CloseDrawers();
}
above code is for xamarin c# and work,but u can easily convert to java

#arsent's answer is correct but setCheckable(false) uncheck all items, it prevents the items from being checked in the future.
Just use setChecked(false)
int size = mNavigationView.getMenu().size();
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
mNavigationView.getMenu().getItem(i).setChecked(false);
}

Change MenuItem text color programmatically

So I have a menu item, that's defined as:
<item
android:id="#+id/action_live"
android:title="#string/action_live"
android:orderInCategory="1"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText" />
It shows as text, as you can see below:
And I want to programmatically change the "LIVE" text color. I've searched for a while and I found a method:
With globally defined:
private Menu mOptionsMenu;
and:
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
mOptionsMenu = menu;
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
return true;
}
I do:
MenuItem liveitem = mOptionsMenu.findItem(R.id.action_live);
SpannableString s = new SpannableString(liveitem.getTitle().toString());
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED), 0, s.length(), 0);
liveitem.setTitle(s);
But nothing happens!
If I do the same for an item of the overflow menu, it works:
Is there some limitation for app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText" items? Is there any workaround?
Thanks in advance.

Bit late to the party with this one, but I spent a while working on this and found a solution, which may be of use to anyone else trying to do the same thing. Some credit goes to Harish Sridharan for steering me in the right direction.
You can use findViewById(R.id.MY_MENU_ITEM_ID) to locate the menu item (provided that the menu had been created and prepared), and cast it to a TextView instance as suggested by Harish, which can then be styled as required.
public class MyAwesomeActivity extends Activity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
// Force invalidatation of the menu to cause onPrepareOptionMenu to be called
invalidateOptionsMenu();
}
private void styleMenuButton() {
// Find the menu item you want to style
View view = findViewById(R.id.YOUR_MENU_ITEM_ID_HERE);
// Cast to a TextView instance if the menu item was found
if (view != null && view instanceof TextView) {
((TextView) view).setTextColor( Color.BLUE ); // Make text colour blue
((TextView) view).setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, 24); // Increase font size
}
}
#Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
boolean result = super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
styleMenuButton();
return result;
}
}
The trick here is to force the menu to be invalidated in the activity's onCreate event (thereby causing the onPrepareMenuOptions to be called sooner than it would normally). Inside this method, we can locate the menu item and style as required.

#RRP give me a clue ,but his solution does not work for me. And #Box give a another, but his answer looks a little not so cleaner. Thanks them. So according to them, I have a total solution.
private static void setMenuTextColor(final Context context, final Toolbar toolbar, final int menuResId, final int colorRes) {
toolbar.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
View settingsMenuItem = toolbar.findViewById(menuResId);
if (settingsMenuItem instanceof TextView) {
if (DEBUG) {
Log.i(TAG, "setMenuTextColor textview");
}
TextView tv = (TextView) settingsMenuItem;
tv.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes));
} else { // you can ignore this branch, because usually there is not the situation
Menu menu = toolbar.getMenu();
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(menuResId);
SpannableString s = new SpannableString(item.getTitle());
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes)), 0, s.length(), 0);
item.setTitle(s);
}
}
});
}

In order to change the colour of menu item you can find that item, extract the title from it, put it in a Spannable String and set the foreground colour to it. Try out this code piece
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
MenuItem mColorFullMenuBtn = menu.findItem(R.id.action_submit); // extract the menu item here
String title = mColorFullMenuBtn.getTitle().toString();
if (title != null) {
SpannableString s = new SpannableString(title);
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.parseColor("#FFFFFF")), 0, s.length(), Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE); // provide whatever color you want here.
mColorFullMenuBtn.setTitle(s);
}
return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

It only becomes a text view after inspection, its real class is ActionMenuItemView, on which we can further set the text color like this:
public static void setToolbarMenuItemTextColor(final Toolbar toolbar,
final #ColorRes int color,
#IdRes final int resId) {
if (toolbar != null) {
for (int i = 0; i < toolbar.getChildCount(); i++) {
final View view = toolbar.getChildAt(i);
if (view instanceof ActionMenuView) {
final ActionMenuView actionMenuView = (ActionMenuView) view;
// view children are accessible only after layout-ing
actionMenuView.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
for (int j = 0; j < actionMenuView.getChildCount(); j++) {
final View innerView = actionMenuView.getChildAt(j);
if (innerView instanceof ActionMenuItemView) {
final ActionMenuItemView itemView = (ActionMenuItemView) innerView;
if (resId == itemView.getId()) {
itemView.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(toolbar.getContext(), color));
}
}
}
}
});
}
}
}
}

You could put the change of the color in the onPrepareOptionsMenu:
override fun onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu: Menu?): Boolean
{
val signInMenuItem = menu?.findItem(R.id.menu_main_sign_in)
val title = signInMenuItem?.title.toString()
val spannable = SpannableString(title)
spannable.setSpan(
ForegroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN),
0,
spannable.length,
Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE)
SgnInMenuItem?.title = spannable
return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu)
}
of course you can make it shorter above...
now you can change the color appearance upon other (ie. viewmodel) values...
RG

I spent a lot of hours on this and finally got it into work. There is easy solusion for Android 6 and 7 but it doesn't work on Android 5. This code works on all of them. So, if you are doing it in Kotlin this is my suggestion:
override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean {
menuInflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu)
setToolbarActionTextColor(menu, R.color.black)
this.menu = menu
return true
}
private fun setToolbarActionTextColor(menu: Menu, color: Int) {
val tb = findViewById<Toolbar>(R.id.toolbar)
tb?.let { toolbar ->
toolbar.post {
val view = findViewById<View>(R.id.my_tag)
if (view is TextView) {
view.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(this, color))
} else {
val mi = menu.findItem(R.id.my_tag)
mi?.let {
val newTitle: Spannable = SpannableString(it.title.toString())
val newColor = ContextCompat.getColor(this, color)
newTitle.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(newColor),
0, newTitle.length, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
it.title = newTitle
}
}
}
}
}

It's complicated, but you can use the app:actionLayout attribute. For example,
my_menu.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item
android:id="#+id/englishList"
android:orderInCategory="1"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText"
app:actionLayout="#layout/custom_menu_item_english_list"
android:title=""/>
</menu>
custom_menu_item_english_list.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:gravity="center_vertical">
<androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatTextView
android:id="#+id/englishListWhiteText"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
android:lineHeight="16dp"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:text="英文"
android:layout_marginRight="8dp"/>
</LinearLayout>
MainActivity.java:
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.englishList);
item.getActionView().findViewById(R.id.englishListWhiteText)
.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(View v){
//Handle button click.
}
});
return true;
}
Result:
More Detailed Example=
https://medium.com/#info.anikdey003/custom-menu-item-using-action-layout-7a25118b9d5

if you are using popup menu function to show the menu items in the application and trying to change the design or color of your text items in the menu list, first create a style item in your style.xml file:
<style name="PopupMenuStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.PopupMenu">
<item name="android:layout_width">match_parent</item>
<item name="android:layout_gravity">center</item>
<item name="android:layout_height">wrap_content</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/ColorPrimary</item>
<item name="android:textSize">#dimen/textsize</item>
<item name="android:fontFamily">#font/myfonts</item></style>
and use this style in your code as:
val popupWrapper = ContextThemeWrapper(this, R.style.PopupMenuStyle)
val popup = PopupMenu(popupWrapper, your_menu_view)

MenuItem as defined by documentation is an interface. It will definitely be implemented with a view widget before being portrayed as an menu. Most cases these menu items are implemented as TextView. You can use UiAutomatorViewer to see the view hierarchy or even use hierarchyviewer which will be found in [sdk-home]/tools/. Attached one sample uiautomatorviewer screenshot for a MenuItem
So you can always typecast your MenuItem and set the color.
TextView liveitem = (TextView)mOptionsMenu.findItem(R.id.action_live);
liveitem.setTextColor(Color.RED);
EDIT:
Since there was request to see how to use this tool, I'm adding a few more contents.
Make sure you have set environment variable $ANDROID_HOME pointing to your SDK HOME.
In your terminal:
cd $ANDROID_HOME
./tools/uiautomatorviewer
This tool will open up.
The second or third button (refer screenshot) in the menu will capture the screenshot of your attached device or emulator and you can inspect the view and their hierarchy. Clicking on the view will describe the view and their information. It is tool purposely designed for testing and you can inspect any application.
Refer developer site for more info: uiautomatorviewer

Honeycomb - customize SearchView inside the action bar

I have a field where the user can type a search query in the action bar of the application. This is declared in the action bar using a menu inflate in the Activity:
<menu
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
>
<item
android:id="#+id/action_search"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
android:title="#string/search"
></item>
</menu>
I need to customize the appearance of the SearchView (for instance background and text color). So far I could not find a way to do it using XML (using styles or themes).
Is my only option to do it in the code when inflating the menu?
Edit #1: I have tried programmatically but I cannot get a simple way to set the text color. Plus when I do searchView.setBackgroundResource(...) The background is set on the global widget, (also when the SearchView is iconified).
Edit #2: Not much information on the Search Developer Reference either

Seibelj had an answer that is good if you want to change the icons. But you'll need to
do it for every API version. I was using ICS with ActionBarSherlock and it didn't do justice for me but it did push me in the correct direction.
Below I change the text color and hint color. I showed how you might go about changing the
icons too, though I have no interest in that for now (and you probably want to use the default icons anyways to be consistent)
#Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Set up the search menu
SearchView searchView = (SearchView)menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).getActionView();
traverseView(searchView, 0);
return true;
}
private void traverseView(View view, int index) {
if (view instanceof SearchView) {
SearchView v = (SearchView) view;
for(int i = 0; i < v.getChildCount(); i++) {
traverseView(v.getChildAt(i), i);
}
} else if (view instanceof LinearLayout) {
LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) view;
for(int i = 0; i < ll.getChildCount(); i++) {
traverseView(ll.getChildAt(i), i);
}
} else if (view instanceof EditText) {
((EditText) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
((EditText) view).setHintTextColor(R.color.blue_trans);
} else if (view instanceof TextView) {
((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
} else if (view instanceof ImageView) {
// TODO dissect images and replace with custom images
} else {
Log.v("View Scout", "Undefined view type here...");
}
}

adding my take on things which is probably a little more efficient and safe across different android versions.
you can actually get a numeric ID value from a string ID name. using android's hierarchyviewer tool, you can actually find the string IDs of the things you are interested in, and then just use findViewById(...) to look them up.
the code below sets the hint and text color for the edit field itself. you could apply the same pattern for other aspects that you wish to style.
private static synchronized int getSearchSrcTextId(View view) {
if (searchSrcTextId == -1) {
searchSrcTextId = getId(view, "android:id/search_src_text");
}
return searchSrcTextId;
}
private static int getId(View view, String name) {
return view.getContext().getResources().getIdentifier(name, null, null);
}
#TargetApi(11)
private void style(View view) {
ImageView iv;
AutoCompleteTextView actv = (AutoCompleteTextView) view.findViewById(getSearchSrcTextId(view));
if (actv != null) {
actv.setHint(getDecoratedHint(actv,
searchView.getContext().getResources().getString(R.string.titleApplicationSearchHint),
R.drawable.ic_ab_search));
actv.setTextColor(view.getContext().getResources().getColor(R.color.ab_text));
actv.setHintTextColor(view.getContext().getResources().getColor(R.color.hint_text));
}
}

You can use the attribute android:actionLayout instead which lets you specify a layout to be inflated. Just have a layout with your SearchView and you won't have to modify anything really.
As to changing text style on the SearchView that is probably not possible as the SearchView is a ViewGroup. You should probably try changing text color via themes instead.

In case anyone wants to modify the views directly, here is how you can change the colors/fonts/images and customize the search box to your pleasure. It is wrapped in a try/catch in case there are differences between versions or distributions, so it won't crash the app if this fails.
// SearchView structure as we currently understand it:
// 0 => linearlayout
// 0 => textview (not sure what this does)
// 1 => image view (the search icon before it's pressed)
// 2 => linearlayout
// 0 => linearlayout
// 0 => ImageView (Search icon on the left of the search box)
// 1 => SearchView$SearchAutoComplete (Object that controls the text, subclass of TextView)
// 2 => ImageView (Cancel icon to the right of the text entry)
// 1 => linearlayout
// 0 => ImageView ('Go' icon to the right of cancel)
// 1 => ImageView (not sure what this does)
try {
LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) searchView.getChildAt(0);
LinearLayout ll2 = (LinearLayout) ll.getChildAt(2);
LinearLayout ll3 = (LinearLayout) ll2.getChildAt(0);
LinearLayout ll4 = (LinearLayout) ll2.getChildAt(1);
TextView search_text = (TextView) ll3.getChildAt(1);
search_text.setTextColor(R.color.search_text);
ImageView cancel_icon = (ImageView)ll3.getChildAt(2);
ImageView accept_icon = (ImageView)ll4.getChildAt(0);
cancel_icon.setBackgroundDrawable(d);
accept_icon.setBackgroundDrawable(d);
} catch (Throwable e) {
Log.e("SearchBoxConstructor", "Unable to set the custom look of the search box");
}
This example shows changing the text color and the background colors of the cancel/accept images. searchView is a SearchView object already instantiated with it's background color:
Drawable d = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.search_widget_background);
searchView.setBackgroundDrawable(d);
Here is the drawable code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:shape="rectangle" >
<solid android:color="#color/white" />
</shape>
Obviously, this is hacky, but it will work for now.

From ICS this is doable using themes and styles. I'm using ActionBarSherlock which makes it applicable also for HC and below.
Add a style to define "android:textColorHint":
<style name="Theme.MyHolo.widget" parent="#style/Theme.Holo">
<item name="android:textColorHint">#color/text_hint_corp_dark</item>
</style>
Apply this as "actionBarWidgetTheme" to your theme:
<style name="Theme.MyApp" parent="#style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
...
<item name="android:actionBarWidgetTheme">#style/Theme.MyHolo.widget</item>
</style>
Presto! Make sure that you use getSupportActionBar().getThemedContext() (or getSupportActionBar() for ActionBarSherlock) if any widgets are initiated where you might have other themes in effect.

How do you inflate the menu xml in your Activity? if you inflate the menu by using getMenuInflator() in your Activity, then the menu and also the searchView get the themed context, that have attached to the activity.
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater.inflate(R.menu.search_action_menu, menu);
}
if you check the source code of Activity.getMenuInflator() at API-15, you can see the themed context codes. Here it is.
*/
public MenuInflater getMenuInflater() {
// Make sure that action views can get an appropriate theme.
if (mMenuInflater == null) {
initActionBar();
if (mActionBar != null) {
mMenuInflater = new MenuInflater(mActionBar.getThemedContext());
} else {
mMenuInflater = new MenuInflater(this);
}
}
return mMenuInflater;
}

How to change the Text color of Menu item in Android?

Can I change the background color of a Menu item in Android?
Please let me know if anyone have any solution to this. The last option will be obviously to customize it but is there any way for changing the text color without customizing it.

One simple line in your theme :)
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#color/your_color</item>

It seems that an
<item name="android:itemTextAppearance">#style/myCustomMenuTextAppearance</item>
in my theme and
<style name="myCustomMenuTextAppearance" parent="#android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item">
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/primary_text_dark</item>
</style>
in styles.xml change the style of list-items but not menu items.

You can change the color of the MenuItem text easily by using SpannableString instead of String.
#Override
public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater) {
inflater.inflate(R.menu.your_menu, menu);
int positionOfMenuItem = 0; // or whatever...
MenuItem item = menu.getItem(positionOfMenuItem);
SpannableString s = new SpannableString("My red MenuItem");
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED), 0, s.length(), 0);
item.setTitle(s);
}

If you are using the new Toolbar, with the theme Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar, you can style it in the following way.
<style name="ToolbarTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">#color/my_color1</item>
<item name="android:textColorSecondary">#color/my_color2</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/my_color3</item>
</style>`
According to the results I got,
android:textColorPrimary is the text color displaying the name of your activity, which is the primary text of the toolbar.
android:textColorSecondary is the text color for subtitle and more options (3 dot) button. (Yes, it changed its color according to this property!)
android:textColor is the color for all other text including the menu.
Finally set the theme to the Toolbar
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
app:theme="#style/ToolbarTheme"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"/>

I went about it programmatically like this:
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.changeip_card_menu, menu);
for(int i = 0; i < menu.size(); i++) {
MenuItem item = menu.getItem(i);
SpannableString spanString = new SpannableString(menu.getItem(i).getTitle().toString());
spanString.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLACK), 0, spanString.length(), 0); //fix the color to white
item.setTitle(spanString);
}
return true;
}

If you are using menu as <android.support.design.widget.NavigationView /> then just add below line in NavigationView :
app:itemTextColor="your color"
Also available colorTint for icon, it will override color for your icon as well. For that you have to add below line:
app:itemIconTint="your color"
Example:
<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
android:id="#+id/nav_view"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
app:itemTextColor="#color/color_white"
app:itemIconTint="#color/color_white"
android:background="#color/colorPrimary"
android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
app:headerLayout="#layout/nav_header_main"
app:menu="#menu/activity_main_drawer"/>
Hope it will help you.

in Kotlin I wrote these extensions:
fun MenuItem.setTitleColor(color: Int) {
val hexColor = Integer.toHexString(color).toUpperCase().substring(2)
val html = "<font color='#$hexColor'>$title</font>"
this.title = html.parseAsHtml()
}
#Suppress("DEPRECATION")
fun String.parseAsHtml(): Spanned {
return if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
Html.fromHtml(this, Html.FROM_HTML_MODE_LEGACY)
} else {
Html.fromHtml(this)
}
}
and used like this:
menu.findItem(R.id.main_settings).setTitleColor(Color.RED)

as you can see in this question you should:
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">yourColor</item>
Above code changes the text color of the menu action items for API >= v21.
<item name="actionMenuTextColor">#android:color/holo_green_light</item>
Above is the code for API < v21

I used the html tag to change a single item's text colour when the menu item is inflated. Hope it would be helpful.
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
menu.findItem(R.id.main_settings).setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ff3824'>Settings</font>"));
return true;
}

SIMPLEST way to make custom menu color for single toolbar, not for AppTheme
<android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme.AppBarOverlay.MenuBlue">
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="#+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"/>
</android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>
usual toolbar on styles.xml
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"/>
our custom toolbar style
<style name="AppTheme.AppBarOverlay.MenuBlue">
<item name="actionMenuTextColor">#color/blue</item>
</style>

I was using Material design and when the toolbar was on a small screen clicking the more options would show a blank white drop down box. To fix this I think added this to the main AppTheme:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:itemTextAppearance">#style/menuItem</item>
</style>
And then created a style where you set the textColor for the menu items to your desired colour.
<style name="menuItem" parent="Widget.AppCompat.TextView.SpinnerItem">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/black</item>
</style>
The parent name Widget.AppCompat.TextView.SpinnerItem I don't think that matters too much, it should still work.

to change menu item text color use below code
<style name="AppToolbar" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:itemTextAppearance">#style/menu_item_color</item>
</style>
where
<style name="menu_item_color">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/app_font_color</item>
</style>

The short answer is YES. lucky you!
To do so, you need to override some styles of the Android default styles :
First, look at the definition of the themes in Android :
<style name="Theme.IconMenu">
<!-- Menu/item attributes -->
<item name="android:itemTextAppearance">#android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item</item>
<item name="android:itemBackground">#android:drawable/menu_selector</item>
<item name="android:itemIconDisabledAlpha">?android:attr/disabledAlpha</item>
<item name="android:horizontalDivider">#android:drawable/divider_horizontal_bright</item>
<item name="android:verticalDivider">#android:drawable/divider_vertical_bright</item>
<item name="android:windowAnimationStyle">#android:style/Animation.OptionsPanel</item>
<item name="android:moreIcon">#android:drawable/ic_menu_more</item>
<item name="android:background">#null</item>
</style>
So, the appearance of the text in the menu is in #android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item
Now, in the definition of the styles :
<style name="TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item" parent="TextAppearance.Small">
<item name="android:textColor">?textColorPrimaryInverse</item>
</style>
So now we have the name of the color in question, if you look in the color folder of the resources of the system :
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="#android:color/bright_foreground_light_disabled" />
<item android:state_window_focused="false" android:color="#android:color/bright_foreground_light" />
<item android:state_pressed="true" android:color="#android:color/bright_foreground_light" />
<item android:state_selected="true" android:color="#android:color/bright_foreground_light" />
<item android:color="#android:color/bright_foreground_light" />
<!-- not selected -->
</selector>
Finally, here is what you need to do :
Override "TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item" and create your own style. Then link it to your own selector to make it the way you want.
Hope this helps you.
Good luck!

Options menu in android can be customized to set the background or change the text appearance. The background and text color in the menu couldn’t be changed using themes and styles. The android source code (data\res\layout\icon_menu_item_layout.xml)uses a custom item of class “com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItem”View for the menu layout. We can make changes in the above class to customize the menu. To achieve the same, use LayoutInflater factory class and set the background and text color for the view.
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);
getLayoutInflater().setFactory(new Factory() {
#Override
public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
if (name .equalsIgnoreCase(“com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItemView”)) {
try{
LayoutInflater f = getLayoutInflater();
final View view = f.createView(name, null, attrs);
new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// set the background drawable
view .setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_ac_menu_background);
// set the text color
((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
}
});
return view;
} catch (InflateException e) {
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {}
}
return null;
}
});
return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Thanks for the code example.
I had to modify it go get it to work with a context menu.
This is my solution.
static final Class<?>[] constructorSignature = new Class[] {Context.class, AttributeSet.class};
class MenuColorFix implements LayoutInflater.Factory {
public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("com.android.internal.view.menu.ListMenuItemView")) {
try {
Class<? extends ViewGroup> clazz = context.getClassLoader().loadClass(name).asSubclass(ViewGroup.class);
Constructor<? extends ViewGroup> constructor = clazz.getConstructor(constructorSignature);
final ViewGroup view = constructor.newInstance(new Object[]{context,attrs});
new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
view.setBackgroundColor(Color.BLACK);
List<View> children = getAllChildren(view);
for(int i = 0; i< children.size(); i++) {
View child = children.get(i);
if ( child instanceof TextView ) {
((TextView)child).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
}
}
}
catch (Exception e) {
Log.i(TAG, "Caught Exception!",e);
}
}
});
return view;
}
catch (Exception e) {
Log.i(TAG, "Caught Exception!",e);
}
}
return null;
}
}
public List<View> getAllChildren(ViewGroup vg) {
ArrayList<View> result = new ArrayList<View>();
for ( int i = 0; i < vg.getChildCount(); i++ ) {
View child = vg.getChildAt(i);
if ( child instanceof ViewGroup) {
result.addAll(getAllChildren((ViewGroup)child));
}
else {
result.add(child);
}
}
return result;
}
#Override
public void onCreateContextMenu(ContextMenu menu, View v, ContextMenuInfo menuInfo) {
LayoutInflater lInflater = getLayoutInflater();
if ( lInflater.getFactory() == null ) {
lInflater.setFactory(new MenuColorFix());
}
super.onCreateContextMenu(menu, v, menuInfo);
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.myMenu, menu);
}
For me this works with Android 1.6, 2.03 and 4.03.

i found it Eureka !!
in your app theme:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarTheme</item>
<!-- backward compatibility -->
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarTheme</item>
</style>
here is your action bar theme:
<style name="ActionBarTheme" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">#color/actionbar_bg_color</item>
<item name="popupTheme">#style/ActionBarPopupTheme</item
<!-- backward compatibility -->
<item name="background">#color/actionbar_bg_color</item>
</style>
and here is your popup theme:
<style name="ActionBarPopupTheme">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/menu_text_color</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/menu_bg_color</item>
</style>
Cheers ;)

Simply add this to your theme
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:itemTextAppearance">#style/AppTheme.ItemTextStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="AppTheme.ItemTextStyle" parent="#android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/orange_500</item>
</style>
Tested on API 21

Thanks to max.musterman, this is the solution I got to work in level 22:
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
MenuItem searchMenuItem = menu.findItem(R.id.search);
SearchView searchView = (SearchView) searchMenuItem.getActionView();
searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
searchView.setSubmitButtonEnabled(true);
searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(this);
setMenuTextColor(menu, R.id.displaySummary, R.string.show_summary);
setMenuTextColor(menu, R.id.about, R.string.text_about);
setMenuTextColor(menu, R.id.importExport, R.string.import_export);
setMenuTextColor(menu, R.id.preferences, R.string.settings);
return true;
}
private void setMenuTextColor(Menu menu, int menuResource, int menuTextResource) {
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(menuResource);
SpannableString s = new SpannableString(getString(menuTextResource));
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLACK), 0, s.length(), 0);
item.setTitle(s);
}
The hardcoded Color.BLACK could become an additional parameter to the setMenuTextColor method. Also, I only used this for menu items which were android:showAsAction="never".

Adding this into my styles.xml worked for me
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">?android:attr/textColorPrimaryInverse</item>

You can set color programmatically.
private static void setMenuTextColor(final Context context, final Toolbar toolbar, final int menuResId, final int colorRes) {
toolbar.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
View settingsMenuItem = toolbar.findViewById(menuResId);
if (settingsMenuItem instanceof TextView) {
if (DEBUG) {
Log.i(TAG, "setMenuTextColor textview");
}
TextView tv = (TextView) settingsMenuItem;
tv.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes));
} else { // you can ignore this branch, because usually there is not the situation
Menu menu = toolbar.getMenu();
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(menuResId);
SpannableString s = new SpannableString(item.getTitle());
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(context, colorRes)), 0, s.length(), 0);
item.setTitle(s);
}
}
});
}

If you want to set color for an individual menu item, customizing a toolbar theme is not the right solution. To achieve this, you can make use of android:actionLayout and an action view for the menu item.
First create an XML layout file for the action view. In this example we use a button as an action view:
menu_button.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<Button
android:id="#+id/menuButton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Done"
android:textColor="?android:attr/colorAccent"
style="?android:attr/buttonBarButtonStyle"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />
</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>
In the code snippet above, we use android:textColor="?android:attr/colorAccent" to customize button text color.
Then in your XML layout file for the menu, include app:actionLayout="#layout/menu_button" as shown below:
main_menu.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item
android:id="#+id/menuItem"
android:title=""
app:actionLayout="#layout/menu_button"
app:showAsAction="always"/>
</menu>
Last override the onCreateOptionsMenu() method in your activity:
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.menuItem);
Button saveButton = item.getActionView().findViewById(R.id.menuButton);
saveButton.setOnClickListener(view -> {
// Do something
});
return true;
}
...or fragment:
#Override
public void onCreateOptionsMenu(#NonNull Menu menu, #NonNull MenuInflater inflater){
inflater.inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.menuItem);
Button saveButton = item.getActionView().findViewById(R.id.menuButton);
button.setOnClickListener(view -> {
// Do something
});
}
For more details on action views, see the Android developer guide.

#Override
public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater) {
inflater.inflate(R.menu.search, menu);
MenuItem myActionMenuItem = menu.findItem( R.id.action_search);
SearchView searchView = (SearchView) myActionMenuItem.getActionView();
EditText searchEditText = (EditText) searchView.findViewById(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_src_text);
searchEditText.setTextColor(Color.WHITE); //You color here

My situation was settings text color in the options menu (main app menu showed on menu button press).
Tested in API 16 with appcompat-v7-27.0.2 library, AppCompatActivity for MainActivity and AppCompat theme for the application in AndroidManifest.xml.
styles.xml:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="actionBarPopupTheme">#style/PopupTheme</item>
</style>
<style name="PopupTheme" parent="#style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:textColorSecondary">#f00</item>
</style>
Don't know if that textColorSecondary affects other elements but it controls the menu text color.
I searched some examples on the topic but all ready-to-use snippets didn't work.
So I wanted to investigate it with the source code for the appcompat-v7 library (specifically with the res folder of the .aar package).
Though in my case I used Eclipse with exploded .aar dependencies. So I could change the default styles and check the results. Don't know how to explode the libraries to use with Gradle or Android Studio directly. It deserves another thread of investigation.
So my purpose was so find which color in the res/values/values.xml file is used for the menu text (I was almost sure the color was there).
I opened that file, then duplicated all colors, put them below the default ones to override them and assigned #f00 value to all of them.
Start the app.
Many elements had red background or text color. And the menu items too. That was what I needed.
Removing my added colors by blocks of 5-10 lines I ended with the secondary_text_default_material_light color item.
Searching that name in the files within the res folder (or better within res/colors) I found only one occurrence in the color/abc_secondary_text_material_light.xml file (I used Sublime Text for these operations so it's easier to find thing I need).
Back to the values.xml 8 usages were found for the #color/abc_secondary_text_material_light.
It was a Light theme so 4 left in 2 themes: Base.ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light and Platform.AppCompat.Light.
The first theme was a child of the second one so there were only 2 attributes with that color resource: android:textColorSecondary and android:textColorTertiaryin the Base.ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light.
Changing their values directly in the values.xml and running the app I found that the final correct attribute was android:textColorSecondary.
Next I needed a theme or another attribute so I could change it in my app's style.xml (because my theme had as the parent the Theme.AppCompat.Light and not the ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light).
I searched in the same file for the Base.ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light. It had a child ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light.
Searching for the ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light I found its usage in the Base.Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar theme as the actionBarPopupTheme attribute value.
My app's theme Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar was a child of the found Base.Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar so I could use that attribute in my styles.xml without problems.
As it's seen in the example code above I created a child theme from the mentioned ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light and changed the android:textColorSecondary attribute.

Sephy's solution doesn't work. It's possible to override the options menu item text appearance using the method described above, but not the item or menu. To do that there are essentially 3 ways:
How to change the background color of the options menu?
Write your own view to display and override onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu to get the results you want. I state this generally because you can generally do whatever you want in these methods, but you probably won't want to call into super().
Copy code from the open-source SDK and customize for your behavior. The default menu implementation used by Activity will no longer apply.
See Issue 4441: Custom Options Menu Theme for more clues.

try this code....
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);
getLayoutInflater().setFactory(new Factory() {
#Override
public View onCreateView(String name, Context context,
AttributeSet attrs) {
if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItemView")) {
try {
LayoutInflater f = getLayoutInflater();
final View view = f.createView(name, null, attrs);
new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// set the background drawable
view.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_ac_menu_background);
// set the text color
((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
}
});
return view;
} catch (InflateException e) {
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
}
}
return null;
}
});
return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Add textColor as below
<style name="MyTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/radio_color_gray</item>
</style>
and use it in Toolbar in xml file
<androidx.appcompat.widget.Toolbar
android:id="#+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
app:popupTheme="#style/MyTheme.PopupOverlay" />

This is how you can color a specific menu item with color, works for all API levels:
public static void setToolbarMenuItemTextColor(final Toolbar toolbar,
final #ColorRes int color,
#IdRes final int resId) {
if (toolbar != null) {
for (int i = 0; i < toolbar.getChildCount(); i++) {
final View view = toolbar.getChildAt(i);
if (view instanceof ActionMenuView) {
final ActionMenuView actionMenuView = (ActionMenuView) view;
// view children are accessible only after layout-ing
actionMenuView.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
for (int j = 0; j < actionMenuView.getChildCount(); j++) {
final View innerView = actionMenuView.getChildAt(j);
if (innerView instanceof ActionMenuItemView) {
final ActionMenuItemView itemView = (ActionMenuItemView) innerView;
if (resId == itemView.getId()) {
itemView.setTextColor(ContextCompat.getColor(toolbar.getContext(), color));
}
}
}
}
});
}
}
}
}
By doing that you loose the background selector effect, so here is the code to apply a custom background selector to all of the menu item children.
public static void setToolbarMenuItemsBackgroundSelector(final Context context,
final Toolbar toolbar) {
if (toolbar != null) {
for (int i = 0; i < toolbar.getChildCount(); i++) {
final View view = toolbar.getChildAt(i);
if (view instanceof ImageButton) {
// left toolbar icon (navigation, hamburger, ...)
UiHelper.setViewBackgroundSelector(context, view);
} else if (view instanceof ActionMenuView) {
final ActionMenuView actionMenuView = (ActionMenuView) view;
// view children are accessible only after layout-ing
actionMenuView.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
for (int j = 0; j < actionMenuView.getChildCount(); j++) {
final View innerView = actionMenuView.getChildAt(j);
if (innerView instanceof ActionMenuItemView) {
// text item views
final ActionMenuItemView itemView = (ActionMenuItemView) innerView;
UiHelper.setViewBackgroundSelector(context, itemView);
// icon item views
for (int k = 0; k < itemView.getCompoundDrawables().length; k++) {
if (itemView.getCompoundDrawables()[k] != null) {
UiHelper.setViewBackgroundSelector(context, itemView);
}
}
}
}
}
});
}
}
}
}
Here is the helper function also:
public static void setViewBackgroundSelector(#NonNull Context context, #NonNull View itemView) {
int[] attrs = new int[]{R.attr.selectableItemBackgroundBorderless};
TypedArray ta = context.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs);
Drawable drawable = ta.getDrawable(0);
ta.recycle();
ViewCompat.setBackground(itemView, drawable);
}

For changing the text color, you can just set a custom view for the MenuItem, and then you can define the color for the text.
Sample Code : MenuItem.setActionView()

Simply just go to
Values - styles and inside styles and type
your color