Android change button colors only - android

For my android project I have some default buttons.
To make the app look nicer I try to change the colors with the following code :
<style name="CustomStyle"parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/CustomButton</item>
</style>
<style name="CustomButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Button">
<item name="android:background">#color/buttonBackgroundColor</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/buttonTextColor</item>
</style>
The color of the buttons are adjusted like I want but all the exisiting default heights and paddings are gone.
How should I adjust the colors of my button without losing the existing padding and height and other default values?
I want to change the style for all buttons in my app in multiple fragments/activitys so doing it programmaticly is not prefered.
Minimum api level that I use is 14, if I used api level 21 or higher I could use backgroundTint instead of background and get the right result but this is not an option now.

Android default button uses a 9 patch drawable as background.
which has some default padding, look at the content area defined by the right and bottom lines.
You can define padding as well in the custom style you have.
<style name="CustomButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Button">
<item name="android:background">#color/buttonBackgroundColor</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/buttonTextColor</item>
<item name="android:padding">#dimen/custom_button_padding</item>
</style>

You can do it programatically with :
yourButton.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(Color.parseColor("#FFFFFF")));
or if you want to do it using styles:
1) You should insert a dimension value within the style xml:
<dimen name="buttonHeight">40px</dimen>
2) Reference the dimension value. So in your layout file you'll write:
android:layout_height="#dimen/buttonHeight"

Related

Material Design 3 Top app bar does not have a shadow. How to enable it?

The new 'Material Design 3 top app bar' docs says they got rid of the drop shadow.
How can I enable it? Setting elevation on Toolbar or AppBar does not work at all.
I had the same situation. I found that:
The shadow drop applies starting from API 28, below API 28 - the shadow effect is the same as with a MaterialComponents theme.
A color fill works below API 28 (tested on API 26).
Docs for Top app bar specs says that the container of the TopAppBar has a role "Surface" and Elevation (on scroll) Level 2.
On the page Color system - Color roles I found information that:
At elevation +2 components with surface color containers receive a primary color overlay with 8% opacity.
So the default style for a TopAppBarLayout uses ?attr/colorSurface as a background color and ?attr/colorPrimary with 8% opacity as an overlay (kind of a scrim effect).
My solution:
Case 1 - Only enable a shadow effect.
Create a style for AppBarLayout and set android:outlineAmbientShadowColor and android:outlineSpotShadowColor to black (as it's a default color for creating shadow). These attributes are set as transparent in Widget.Material3.AppBarLayout.
<style name="Widget.App.AppBarLayout" parent="Widget.Material3.AppBarLayout">
<item name="android:outlineAmbientShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
<item name="android:outlineSpotShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
</style>
Case 2 - Enable a shadow effect and get rid of the overlay.
In addition to the above you can add either an android:background attribute with you color or a materialThemeOverlay attribute with setting colorSurface to your color (a background) and colorPrimary to #android:transparent (an overlay). I prefer to add directly android:background because adding materialThemeOverlay can have impact on the child views of your AppBarLayout which.
<style name="Widget.App.AppBarLayout" parent="Widget.Material3.AppBarLayout">
<item name="android:outlineAmbientShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
<item name="android:outlineSpotShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/white</item>
</style>
or
<style name="Widget.App.AppBarLayout" parent="Widget.Material3.AppBarLayout">
<item name="android:outlineAmbientShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
<item name="android:outlineSpotShadowColor" ns1:ignore="NewApi">#android:color/black</item>
<item name="materialThemeOverlay">#style/ThemeOverlay.App.DayNight.NoActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="ThemeOverlay.App.DayNight.NoActionBar" parent="Theme.Material3.DayNight.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#android:color/transparent</item>
<item name="colorSurface">#android:color/white</item>
</style>
Don't forget apply your style to your AppBarLayout or theme.
By the way, a liftOnScroll attribute is set to true in Widget.Material3.AppBarLayout so there's no need for setting it. Everything works with setting only layout_behavior for a scrolling view.

Toolbar - Android 10

I'm trying to change the background and title color of the toolbar on Android 10.
In the xml file, I have the following (in style):
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/C_Yellow</item>
<item name="toolbarStyle">#style/CustomStyle</item>
(in resources):
<style name="CustomStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar">
<item name="titleTextColor">#color/B_Blue</item>
</style>
It works on Android 4.4; however, on Android 10, it just has a black background with white text.
What should I do in order to change both background and title color on Android 10?
Just use android:foregroundTint for text color and icons if present, secondly for background use android:background and set color according to your choice

How to professionally organise the styling of buttons? (SDK 26+, min SDK 21)

What is best practice to organise styling of buttons of a professional android application? Assume a larger contemporary application (SDK 26+, min SDK 21).
This question is answerable, as both the sources of Material Design and the setup of Android Studio give enough clues and examples of the patterns of the intended professional usage. Surely the user is not limited to this patterns, but following them, makes the application play well together with the sources of Material Design and provides best maintainability.
I find several ingredients related to the styling of buttons.
#style/Widget.AppCompat.Button
#style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored
#style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Button
#style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.Button
#color/foreground_material_dark
?colorAccent
?textColorPrimary
?android:colorForeground
?textAppearanceButton
There may be more.
How are all the ingredients related?
How are they intended to be used together in professional theming?
You can look up the sources. However, even knowing all details does not give the full picture of the intended usage. This question is asking to draw the picture.
(Min SDK 21)
General Approach
Granularity
I think it an enough fine-grained approach to separate the text appearance from the backgrounds. This gives the option to combine different backgrounds with different text appearances. It also matches the two style settings provided by Button and the organisation of Material Design. Hence it addresses the question, how it is intended to be used.
The price is, that each Button needs both settings:
Button text: android:textAppearance
Button background: style
To even lower this price styles_material.xml in fact takes an advanced approach. Each button style already includes a default text appearance. So in the normal case I only have to apply the button style.
<Button
style="?defaultButtonStyle"
I follow this pattern for my own button styling, as the question is for the intended usage. If I want to modify the default, I add an alternative text appearance by setting it to android:textAppearance.
<Button
style="?defaultButtonStyle"
android:textAppearance="?smallButtonTextAppearance"
For very special buttons I still can adjust the styling on the level of the layout file. This is the lowest level of granularity.
Hint: Be aware that android:textAppearance has a very low
precedence. If you set a text attribute somewhere in the theme (or style),
you will overwrite the same attribute in all of android:textAppearance.
It works with a similar force like the "!important" annotation in CSS,
which can be a pretty pitfall.
Flexible theming
Without
If I don't plan to use different themes, I can set the styles directly into the layouts.
<Button
style="#style/My.DefaultButtonStyle"
android:textAppearance="#style/My.SmallButtonTextAppearance"
...
With
If a want to be able to exchange themes, I map all types of styles to attributes first. Then I set the styles indirectly by using the attributes. This gives me the option to connect other styles for other themes, without the need to duplicate layouts.
<Button
style="?defaultButtonStyle"
android:textAppearance="?smallButtonTextAppearance"
...
I personally prefer not to use or mix given attributes, but to fully define my own set of attributes addressing my design. So the levels of the onion stay cleanly separated.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<resources>
<!-- button text appearance -->
<attr name="defaultButtonTextAppearance" format="reference" />
<attr name="smallButtonTextAppearance" format="reference" />
<!-- button backgrounds -->
<attr name="defaultButtonStyle" format="reference" />
<attr name="alarmButtonStyle" format="reference" />
In the themes the attributes are mapped to theme specific styles.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="OtherTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<!-- button text appearance -->
<item name="defaultButtonTextAppearance">#style/OtherTheme.DefaultButtonTextAppearance</item>
...
<!-- button backgrounds -->
<item name="defaultButtonStyle">#style/OtherTheme.DefaultButtonStyle</item>
...
Button Text
If I track down the styles to the sources I come to a file data/res/values/styles_material.xml, which defines the root of all button text appearances. TextAppearance.Material.Button inherits from TextAppearance.Material, but the four relevant attributes for buttons are overwritten.
<style name="TextAppearance.Material">
<item name="textColor">?attr/textColorPrimary</item>
<item name="textColorHint">?attr/textColorHint</item>
<item name="textColorHighlight">?attr/textColorHighlight</item>
<item name="textColorLink">?attr/textColorLink</item>
<item name="textSize">#dimen/text_size_body_1_material</item>
<item name="fontFamily">#string/font_family_body_1_material</item>
<item name="lineSpacingMultiplier">#dimen/text_line_spacing_multiplier_material</item>
</style>
<style name="TextAppearance.Material.Button">
<item name="textSize">#dimen/text_size_button_material</item>
<item name="fontFamily">#string/font_family_button_material</item>
<item name="textAllCaps">true</item>
<item name="textColor">?attr/textColorPrimary</item>
</style>
It can be overwritten by my own inherited styles. It also shows, that it would be easy to write my own text appearance style without using inheritance at all.
Color
Understanding Androids text color management system is them most confusing part, because the system is quite powerful. Here comes some enlightenment.
In the above TextAppearance.Material.Button I find text color is specified by the attribute ?textColorPrimary. This attribute again is based on the attribute ?android:colorForeground.
The attribute ?android:colorForeground is the central switch to set the text colors. Be default all text colors are calculated based on this setting, also those of the buttons. For example different grades of greyed-out or opaque variants are calculated for disabled buttons, for body text, etc.
Instead of touching dozens of different places it is a good idea to set the common default text color here and rely on the default Android color calculating system as far as useful. Tweak it in details.
<item name="android:colorForeground">#color/orange_700</item>
This setting defaults to #color/foreground_material_dark.
Hint 1: If you edit the setting by use of
the Android Studio Theme Editor, it will possibly change the
value of#color/foreground_material_dark. To me it does not
feel like a good idea to change a value of material dark because
it is not my realm. Better use a reference like shown before.
Hint 2: The Theme Editor is an appropriate tool to discover
the relations of the color attributes system. This relations reveal,
when you experimentally try to edit the different attributes with the editor.
If I want a button text color that varies from the overall text color, I set it on the level of the text appearance style.
Hint 3: Using ?android:colorForeground does not work out of the
box below API 26. For a workaround see here.
Text size
The text size is the factor of the text appearance, that I typically want to directly adjust to my own design within my customised text appearance styles.
<style name="My.SmallButtonTextAppearance" parent="My.DefaultButtonTextAppearance">
<item name="android:textSize">16sp</item>
</style>
TextAppearance.Material.Button takes the text size default from the resource #dimen/text_size_button_material. There is no system with a central text size setting comparable to the text color setting system.
All caps
The root style TextAppearance.Material.Button set's all caps to true. There is not even a resource, the value is taken from. It's just hard coded.
<item name="textAllCaps">true</item>
There is a high chance, I want to set it to false in my customised button styles.
<item name="android:textAllCaps">false</item>
Font family
As with the text colors the font family typically is a system with a common central nature. How is it managed for the buttons? The root style TextAppearance.Material.Button makes use a the string resource #string/font_family_button_material.
<item name="fontFamily">#string/font_family_button_material</item>
In the file data/res/values/donttranslate_material.xml this is set to sans-serif-medium, while in the file data/res/values-watch/donttranslate_material.xml is is set to sans-serif-condensed.
<string name="font_family_button_material">sans-serif-medium</string>
<string name="font_family_button_material">sans-serif-condensed</string>
This sans-serif settings are mapped to my chosen font family within the fonts setup. Typically sans-serif is fine for button text. For further customisation of the fonts I point to this question.
Button Style
Apart from using a color for the background, a xml resource file can be applied to specify the background with fancy corners, color gradients or other graphical effects, also supporting different backgrounds for different states of the button.
This part is strongly influenced by my design. I will typically use my own background.
On the other hand there is a rich system of predefined button backgrounds resource files in material design. I would like to give a short overview here, but that's beyond my skills and seems so large to be worth a topic of it's own.
The style for the background should not contain settings for width, height or margins, as this belongs into the surrounding layout. On the other hand the padding belongs into the background style.
Button styles of Material Design
In the file data/res/values/styles_material.xml I find nine button styles I may inherit from. If I write my very own, a should not forget to set a default text appearance.
The root element is Widget.Material.Button. It set's the default text appearance to ?textAppearanceButton. Hence, setting this attribute is an option to directly use the material design button styles without inheritance and yet have your customised default text appearance.
<!-- Bordered ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button">
<item name="background">#drawable/btn_default_material</item>
<item name="textAppearance">?attr/textAppearanceButton</item>
<item name="minHeight">48dip</item>
<item name="minWidth">88dip</item>
<item name="stateListAnimator">#anim/button_state_list_anim_material</item>
<item name="focusable">true</item>
<item name="clickable">true</item>
<item name="gravity">center_vertical|center_horizontal</item>
</style>
The attribute ?colorAccent is used, to set the color of Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored. See the Android Studio Theme Editor. See #drawable/btn_colored_material.
Note that the default text appearance of Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored varies and is not set by a customisable attribute.
<!-- Colored bordered ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Colored">
<item name="background">#drawable/btn_colored_material</item>
<item name="textAppearance">#style/TextAppearance.Material.Widget.Button.Colored</item>
</style>
<!-- Small bordered ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Small">
<item name="minHeight">48dip</item>
<item name="minWidth">48dip</item>
</style>
<!-- Borderless ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Borderless">
<item name="background">#drawable/btn_borderless_material</item>
<item name="stateListAnimator">#null</item>
</style>
Note that the default text appearance of Widget.Material.Button.Borderless.Colored varies and is not set by a customisable attribute.
<!-- Colored borderless ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Borderless.Colored">
<item name="textAppearance">#style/TextAppearance.Material.Widget.Button.Borderless.Colored</item>
</style>
Note that Widget.Material.Button.ButtonBar.AlertDialog inherits from Widget.Material.Button.Borderless.Colored. Same limitations of the default text appearance apply.
<!-- Alert dialog button bar button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.ButtonBar.AlertDialog" parent="Widget.Material.Button.Borderless.Colored">
<item name="minWidth">64dp</item>
<item name="minHeight">#dimen/alert_dialog_button_bar_height</item>
</style>
<!-- Small borderless ink button -->
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Borderless.Small">
<item name="minHeight">48dip</item>
<item name="minWidth">48dip</item>
</style>
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Inset">
<item name="background">#drawable/button_inset</item>
</style>
<style name="Widget.Material.Button.Toggle">
<item name="background">#drawable/btn_toggle_material</item>
<item name="textOn">#string/capital_on</item>
<item name="textOff">#string/capital_off</item>
</style>
Personally I would either use one of this predefined button styles or inherit my own from Widget.Material.Button. This keeps the hierarchy of inheritance low and the code easily readable. It saves me at most three lines of code if I inherit from another style, while the code becomes less maintainable.
There are exceptions to this rule of thumb. For example #drawable/btn_borderless_material is private. So I either have to inherit from Widget.Material.Button.Colored or create a copy of the file.
Appendix
Related questions
Attributes
Defining custom attrs
Android Use custom themes to modify style attributes
Android "?colorPrimary" vs "?attr/colorPrimary"?
Inheritance issue, when using property androidTextapperance vs. property style
Colors
Setting a color based on theme
Attribute android:colorForeground not working in API 23
android themes - defining colours in custom themes
Fonts
How to set default font family for entire Android app
How to change fontFamily of TextView in Android
What is the difference between fontFamily and typeFace in android?
it's up to you and depends on your application.. also you can set a background using an xml file
eg:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_pressed="true" >
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<corners android:radius="20dp" />
<solid android:color="#8c0000" />
</shape>
</item>
<item >
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<corners android:radius="20dp" />
<solid android:color="#c62f2c" />
</shape>
</item>
</selector>

Setting background color to all the activities and fragment by style

I am trying to set the background color for all my entire app and I could not do it. WHat I am doing is this:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme"> <!-- All customizations that are NOT specific to a particular API-level can go here. -->
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/holo_gray</item>
<item name="android:colorBackground">#color/holo_gray</item>
</style>
I also tried with:
<item name="android:background">#color/holo_gray</item>
I want to have the same default background color of Api 14 in lower APIs, that light gray.
I know that I could fix it by adding a android:background="#color/holo_gray" in every root layout but I want to do it by style, to avoid repeat this line in all my xml layout.
Thanks in advance,
holo_gray is not work in lower version so you should write you own color instead of it.Making the change in all value folder styles
#color/"holo_gray"(Replace your own color)
If you have ListViews in your layouts, they possess a default white background on 2.2. Try setting android:background="#null" on them, so your window background can show up.

override standard style with ABS

In my AndroidManifest file i do not declare a theme.
The result is:
black background and ABS with blue background, also states of list item's is blue.
thats fine.
now i want to make to set the indeterminateProgressStyle to Widget.ProgressBar.Small
Therefore i have to declare my own style like this:
<style name="Custom" parent="??">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarIPS</item>
</style>
what should i enter in the parent parameter?
i want all style behaviors like before (black background with blue ABS and blue list item states etc as it is defined when i dont declare a theme attribute in AndroidManifest.
EDIT:
i also need to know this parent's value:
<style name="ActionBarIPS" parent="ABS with blue background">
<item name="android:indeterminateProgressStyle">#style/IndeterminateProgress</item>
</style>
the version without a style in manifest:
the version with custom style and parent=Theme.Sherlock
i want the first version with indeterminate spinner set to "small"
It's depend to your current style, It can be Theme.Sherlock, Theme.Sherlock.Light, Theme.Sherlock.ForceOverflow and etc, e.g:
<style name="Custom" parent="Theme.Sherlock or Theme.Sherlock.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarIPS</item>
<item name="android:indeterminateProgressStyle">#style/IndeterminateProgress</item>
</style>
Note: You must declare this style in style.xml in your values directory.
Edited:
You got blue ActionBar without using ABS because you're using Samsung TouchWiz default UI.
If you install your APK in non-samsung devices you won't see this blue action bar, But If you are forced to have blue actionbar then put the following image in your drawable directory and set it as your actionbar background through:
getSupportActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(getResources()
.getDrawable(R.drawable.TouchWiz_ActionBar_Bg));
Try to use "Theme.Sherlock" as a parent. Also I suggest to add:
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarIPS</item>

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