Develop Reference

Understanding styles

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>

Android Studio Render Problem: Failed to find style 'coordinatorLayoutStyle' in current theme

Whenever I add Navigation Activity I am getting this issue below is screenshot attached. For more details, I am using compile SDK version 27.
I am getting this issue in layout files generated after adding navigation activity.
My theme is AppTheme.NoActionBar
My styles.xml file content is below:
<!-- 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>
<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" />
What to do? I am pretty much stuck on this.

I think use(Base.Theme) Your Problem is Solved
like this :parent="Base.Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

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.

How to make my app with transparrent theme?

I am making my Music player now. I want it to be lightly transparent(Android background barely visable). Structure: One activity with 4 fragments (viewPager with tabs). Any ideas?
<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>
<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" />

Just use this theme in your Activity's theme
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"
This will make the background of your ACtivity completely transparent. You can also extend that theme and set a custom windowBackground
In your styles.xml
<style name="MyTransparentTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar">
<item name="windowBackground">#color/my_transparent_color</item>
</style>
In case you are using AppCompat you should change the parent theme to
<style name="MyTransparentTheme" parent="#style/Theme.AppCompat.Translucent.NoTitleBar">
<item name="windowBackground">#color/my_transparent_color</item>
</style>

How to have Material Design for Pre-Lollipop Devices

I'm looking to have the same design for Pre-Lollipop devices.
In my application I'm using a switch button which is looking like this on Lollipop devices :
and on Pre-Lollipop devices. it's looking like this :
So how can I do that I have two styles folders :
my Styles xml looks like :
<resources>
<style name="MyMaterialTheme" parent="MyMaterialTheme.Base">
</style>
<style name="MyMaterialTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="windowActionModeOverlay">true</item>
<item name="actionModeBackground">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
</style>
<style name="MyMaterialTheme.AppBarOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
<style name="MyMaterialTheme.PopupOverlay" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />

You could use the SwitchCompat class instead of Switch to provide backwards compatibility.

For switch you need to use the new android.support.v7.widget.SwitchCompat
More info here