Develop Reference

Why does a Button loses its original behaviour after changing its color?

I am writing an Android app and now I am styling it. I am using a custom theme which is a child of Theme.Holo.Light. I really like Theme.Holo.Light because its buttons have a special effect when you click and hold it. Like the lower button in the picture below:
Not click:
click:
The upper button has been changed color. Now when I click on that button, it doesn't have that effect. I really don't understand why. Can anyone tell me why this happens and how can I get the same effect with a colored button?
And also, the colored button seems fatter.

This is because the button uses a selector to display different colors/effects/drawables based on the state of the click. You can check out the link on Color State List Resource.
To create your own you have to create a slecetor cml file and put it in your drawables folder.
For example.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:drawable="#drawable/shape_btn_default_normal_gray" android:state_enabled="true" android:state_pressed="false"/>
<item android:drawable="#drawable/shape_btn_default_pressed_gray" android:state_pressed="true"/>
<item android:drawable="#drawable/shape_btn_default_disabled_gray"/>
</selector>
or with colors
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:drawable="#color/dark_green" android:state_enabled="true" android:state_pressed="false"/>
<item android:drawable="#color/light_green" android:state_pressed="true"/>
<item android:drawable="#color/gray"/>
</selector>
To apply this you have to set the background drawable in your layout xml like this.
<Button
android:id="#+id/my_btn"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:text="Some text"
android:background="#drawable/selector_btn_default_gray"/>

That is the "ripple effect" of material design.You have define you own style for that effect.Link below may help you or you may search for many other answers on StackOverflow. Material effect on button with background color

It does not loses its behavior you can see after click (in your second image) the button show same scale as the above have...so by default the background is set as to show that it is button (like with padding or so) and can changes to show oncklick effect...
So when you set your desire background to button...It takes complete change on what is on presently on it and then you have to manually set onclick effect..

Change text color based on theme in a selector with different states

I try to change the color based on my theme. My TextView is using color-selector with different states for enabled and disabled and I want to use my theme based color in this selector.
I have followed this solution: android themes - defining colours in custom themes
My selector used as android:textColor in my view looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_enabled="true" android:color="#ffffff" />
<item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="?attr/ThemeTest"/>
</selector>
with ThemeTest being my custom attribut which has a color assigned in my themes. If I use this selector as my textColor, the color is actually not what I picked but just a simple plain RED! HOWEVER if I use the custom attribut directly in my view
android:textColor="?ThemeTest"
then it works but I obviously want to do this based on the change of state of my view...
Does anybody understand this behaviour and know how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

Using a theme attribute inside a color selector XML file is only supported in the most recent versions of Android. To overcome this limitation you need to create one color selector file for each theme, and fill them with plain colors. Then create a theme attribute which points to the correct color selector depending on the theme.
source: https://plus.google.com/102404231349657584821/posts/XEeehfwanGy
edit: tested and it works flawlessly!

Android: change button background/text/compoundDrawables with selector XML

I have already been using selector drawables to make my button change background according to the state.
However, I also want to change the text color and left compound drawable together with the background. But the default selector XML atrribute does not contain any "android:textColor" or "android:drawableLeft" to be assigned.
I know I can always achieve this with extend my own button class, but is there any clean way out?

I am not very sure about drawables but for changing textcolor depending upon button state, I use selectors as below,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item android:state_pressed="true" android:color="#color/color_light_green"></item>
<item android:color="#fff"></item>
//state you want
</selector>
and then apply it to textColor attribute in the xml as,
android:textColor="#drawable/selector_btn_text_color"
Eclipse doesn't auto suggest color attribute in selector but we can do it. :)

Android textColor selector

I am trying to set up a selector for TextView textColor using the following code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="?android:attr/textColorTertiary" />
<item android:color="?android:attr/textColorPrimary"/>
</selector>
However, the color always appears to be red instead of those theme colors. If I put hardcoded color, everything seems to work fine. (ex. <item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="#666666" /> ).
What is the problem and how to solve it? P.S. if anyone knows how to set theme's default disabled color for disabled item in the list, please share, that is what I am trying to achieve. Thanks.

As far as i can see you may have to use 3 states in a selector.
state enabled
state focused
state pressed
in exactly this order. This might help

You used selector for what reason?
If you want to make your text of text view always red then no need of selector. Just define color in color.XML or in string.XML using add color.
And if you want to chanhe it on selection or focus than use the states.
state enabled
state pressed
state focused
Than it will work as you need.

Android view state_pressed Blue background

I have a lot of custom views and I have style for state_pressed. Basically its a rectangle with
solid android:color="#DC2D5A8C"
What I am trying to do is simulate the blue background color that comes with the standard views/controls. For example: when you click on a button or list view item, the background changes to blue (on_pressed).
I got that to work with the above style, but the problem is let's call it the tint effect. In a button, the text caption is black. When you press, the background is blue and the text color changes to white.
Now how can I achieve such a so called "tint" change in my custom control's view?
Your response is much appreciated.
Thanks!

You can use selector xml file to do this.You must be setting background to the button.Instead of that set the xml file to its background.Create selector.xml file in your drawable folder as shown below and set that xml file as background to that button just like : android:background="#drawable/selector"
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<!-- When selected, use blue -->
<item android:drawable="#drawable/btn_blue"
android:state_pressed="true" />
<!-- When not selected, use black-->
<item android:drawable="#drawable/btn_black"/>
</selector>
By doing this you will get so called tint effect to your button.Hope this will help you.