Develop Reference

Issues changing the color of views

So I am trying to change my app color to blue and some of most the views I have are not willing to cooperate with me.
Here is the image:
Here I want to change the color of the green parts on the spinner, edittext and checkbox views (which are green) to black or blue.
I've looked all over Stack Overflow and I can't find the solution!
Thank you very much, If possible I would like to have a XML solution but I wouldn't mind a programmatic solution!

Add these to your base theme in styles.xml
<item name="colorControlNormal">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlActivated">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlHighlight">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
Note: The above change will affect the EditTexts and other views probably throughout the application.
If not, and if you are using the AppCompat v22 support library, you can specify the theme in the EditText like: android:theme="#style/Theme.App.Base.
This will ensure the style won't also affect other views in your layouts that you don't want to change
Also if you want to change the above solution, just add another Theme specific to EditTexts and Spinners and apply it to all Spinners if you want
<style name="MyWidgetTheme">
<item name="colorControlNormal">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlActivated">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlHighlight">#color/YOUR_COLOR</item>
</style>
and in your EditText, Spinner or any other View, just assign this theme:
<EditText
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="Demo"
android:lines="1"
android:theme="#style/MyWidgetTheme"
/>
<Spinner
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:theme="#style/MyWidgetTheme"></Spinner>

Take a look to this resource generator.
Choose your color, the widgets you want to generate and voila! You copy them to your project and reference them in your xmls.

App crash when android:theme is aplied to a specific button

i am doing a simple calculator aplication for android (my first app) and i have problems that are breaking my head when i try to apply a specific android:theme to a button.
The problem comes out when the button with the specific theme try to execute an activity method in onclick event. Based on what I 've searched in StackOverflow, is like the "context" of the button with the specific theme is different from the activity context, and because of that it cant find my method that handles the onclick written in the activity.
There is my style.xml where i define my aplication theme and my specific button theme:
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#dc000000</item>
<item name="android:background">#dc262626</item>
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
</style>
<style name="contextButtonTheme" parent="AppTheme">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/contextButtonsColor</item>
</style>
</resources>
There is my button in the layout xml:
<Button
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="25"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:text="X"
android:id="#+id/multButton"
android:textSize="11pt"
android:theme="#style/contextButtonTheme"
android:onClick="onClickButton"/>
The solution i read here is that change "android:theme" with "style", although this solves the crash, the colorButtonNormal new color is dont applied :(.
Pls help me D:
PD: Sorry for my bad english

I've answered a similar question here, where you can get a bit more background.
A possible solution to your problem is to not use android:onClick="onClickButton" but set an onClickListener in code. This way you can keep your themed Button. The official docs have an example how to do this.

Themes in android

A create a simple Theme as
<style name='one'>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
However on viewing in the emulator the screen goes black.when i do not apply theme the screen has a white background .
what really happens here.i am just starting with android.
In addition ,if a apply a theme to my activity then the attributes of the theme applies to all components of my activity say button,textfields and edittexts .
why would i then write
android:textSize=?android:textSize
to reference value from the theme for any button in my layout when the same value would already be applying.
is the syntax above the correct way to reference an attribute from my theme to assign to attribute for any view in my layout.
thanks
tejinder

Yeah, so you need to do a little more reading.
Let's start with the basics,
You need to understand the differente betweent an Attribute, a Style, and a Theme.
An Attribute is something that can be styled. For instance: android:textSize is an attribute that can have any value.
A Style is a set of specific attributes that will be applied to a Widget. They are defined
in your /values/styles.xml
For instance:
<style name="normalTextThin" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.TextView">
<item name="android:gravity">left|center_vertical</item>
<item name="android:padding">8dp</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
<item name="android:textSize">16sp</item>
</style>
The styles can be applied either as part of a theme or directly as theme-independent.
Theme-indepentent styling of a widget is like this:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/text"
style="#style/normalTextThin"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
You are then theming only that one TextView.
A Theme is a collection of Styles that can be applied to a part of your UI, such a a whole Activity, or your whole Application.
For instance:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="android:editTextStyle">#style/EditTextAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/ButtonAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:imageButtonStyle">#style/ImageButtonAppTheme</item>
</style>
Here, we are declaring that all EditText in your application will use the style named EditTextAppTheme, and so forth and on. When done like this, in order to actually have the theme be active, you declare it in the manifest:
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme" >
That means that you are not required to declare the style on each widget you create.
<EditText
android:id="#+id/input"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="#string/hint_search">
<requestFocus />
</EditText>
That widget right there would already be styled using EditTextAppTheme without the need of you explicitely declaring so.
I recommend you try to read on what attributes can be styled, how to style them, and so forth and on.
If you don't want to though, it's fine, you can still get a lot done with the following tools for styling:
ActionBarStyleGenerator to help you create styles for the ActionBar.
Android Holo Colors to help you style standard widgets.
Hope that helps.
Additional Info
Let me clarify on the whole ?attr/attributeName
The ? means that the system will choose the specific attributeName value for the current Configuration (not specific to different themes). This should be used only when you want the value to be different on different configurations. For example:
?android:attr/actionBarSize
This line is a dimension, and it will be different not based on the current theme, but on the current device screen size and orientation (values, values-land, values-sw600dp).
It's important to know that specifying ?android: means you are accessing preset Android values, not yours. If you have or want to create and use your own attribute values for specific configurations, you must do the following:
Create a file named attrs.xml on your /values/ folder.
Declare the desired custom attribute:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
<attr name="my_custom_attr" format="reference" />
</resources>
Declare a value for the custom attribute, let's say on your own theme.
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="my_custom_attr">#resource_type/resource_name</item>
<item name="android:editTextStyle">#style/EditTextAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/ButtonAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:imageButtonStyle">#style/ImageButtonAppTheme</item>
</style>
And then you can use it on the Widget you'd like:
Hope that clears things out.
EDIT 2
For a better answer to your question, please update your question. And like I said, read more on how to properly create styles.
The Theme named 'one', what do you want to apply it to? An activity, a Widget, the whole Application?
How are you applying the theme? Show the lines of code where you specify the usage of theme 'one'.
Your theme as you specified is simply not a properly constructed theme/style.
<style name='one'>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
This says absolutely nothing, and it is definitely not suitable for an Activity-level theme. The reason you specify a parent is so your theme can inherit all of the attributes from the parent, and then you specifiy which ones to change.
For instance, if you want to use your theme and have a light background, do this:
<style name='one' parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
But even here, despite the fact that it will apply, you don't want to have the same text color and size for the whole application do you? That'd be nonsense, different text color and sizes account for a big part of the user experience, so rather than setting those values from what we can refer to as the main style, we can create substyles and apply them to certain widgets.
I can't really go any more detailed that what I already have, the above explains how to accomplish Widget-specific styling, and activity/application level theming.
For a complete start-up guide, read the Android Developer Site, try the test styles declared there, see how they work, and until then try to create your own, don't try to create something out of nowhere if no reading has been made.

Holo light theme not setting on button

I am building a sample application based on latest version of Android OS..As per instructions given here I am trying to give holo:light theme to only one button in my application. How do i do it ? I have created a myStyles.xml in res/values folder but I am not able to find property to apply holo-light theme.
This is what i have in myStyles.xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="mybutton" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:background">#android:color/holo_orange_light</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/holo_blue_dark</item>
</style>
</resources>
this is i have in my activity.
<Button
android:id="#+id/button1"
style="#style/mybutton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="lol" />
I can confirm that backgroundcolor and textcolor are getting applied...(done this for testing purpose).
Currently, If i add android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light" to AndroidManifest.xml, holo light theme is applied to entire application. However, I want this theme to be applied for only few controls ( in this case a single button control).

A theme is a style applied to an entire Activity or application, rather than an individual View.
Thus, what you are asking for is not possible. That being said, it seems odd that you would want to do this anyway. I suggest applying the holo theme to your entire app, and then customizing your Buttons only if you really need to. This is probably what the user will expect from your application.

applying themes to my android app dynamically

I have three buttons to change themes. On clicking each button my app theme must change dynamically. How to do it programmatically.

To set the theme dynamically at runtime, call setTheme() in your activity's onCreate() method, before calling setContentView(). To change the theme, you simply need to restart your activity.
Here is a nice tutorial on how dynamically apply themes.
and this one too.

Please Visit this link for it.
<TextView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textColor="#00FF00"
android:typeface="monospace"
android:text="#string/hello" />
<TextView
style="#style/CodeFont"
android:text="#string/hello" />
By defining an xml theme file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="CodeFont" parent="#android:style/TextAppearance.Medium">
<item name="android:layout_width">fill_parent</item>
<item name="android:layout_height">wrap_content</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#00FF00</item>
<item name="android:typeface">monospace</item>
</style>
</resources>
You can also apply styles to all activities of an application:
<application android:theme="#style/CustomTheme">
Or just one activity:
<activity android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Dialog">

Sorry but you can't change styles programmatically.
how to set the Style Attribute Programmatically in Android?
There are certainly other methods to achieve this desired behavior however. You could set onclick listeners for each button, and programmatically change text size, color, background etc of your various view elements

you can use a particular theme for a given xml file.
in graphical layout you can CHANGE the theme of the layout using editing config.
use onclick event to go to next layout and here your theme will be different from the first one.

Vimalatha, to change your background when you click a button just add this code to the onClick function of your button.
myLinearLayout.setBackgroundColor(Color.BLUE);
Assuming that myLinearLayout is your LinearLayout name...