Prior to appcompat version 22.1.0, I was able to define a global style for my apps toolbars in styles.xml.
<item name="toolbarStyle">#style/AppTheme.Widget.Toolbar</item>
My global toolbar style declared a theme attribute for the toolbar:
<style name="AppTheme.Widget.Toolbar" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar">
<item name="theme">#style/AppTheme.Widget.Toolbar.ThemeOverlay</item>
</style>
After upgrading to 22.1.0 and changing the theme attribute to the new android:theme attribute, the theme no longer gets applied. If I declare this theme on a toolbar in a layout.xml, it works.
How can I declare a global theme for toolbars with a global style?
It's not a bug, as android:theme has greater meaning over any style (styles get their values from themes).
This did work in previous versions as a side effect of the implementation. The implementation is now much closer to how LayoutInflater works in Android 5.0+.
Related
I am Struggling to change the color of the status bar for each activity.
I have tried the create theme and style listed in posts on this site to no avail.
How can I make each activity have a status bar of different color?
You can change it by setting the android:statusBarColor or android:colorPrimaryDark attribute of the style you're using for your app in styles.xml.
(android:statusBarColor inherits the value of android:colorPrimaryDark by default)
For example (since we're using an AppCompat theme here, the android namespace is omitted):
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/your_custom_color</item>
</style>
On API level 21+ you can also use the Window.setStatusBarColor() method from code.
I have:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="colorAccent">#color/myColor</item>
</style>
But I want to allow the user to change the accent color. Can I do it with AppCompat?
No you can't, because the accent color is defined in the theme and themes are read-only in Android.
The only thing you can do is switch themes or set the color of each component manually.
Note: you can apply a theme to a portion of UI instead of the whole Activity in order to change the accent color (or other things) locally. To do so, you can use the android:theme attribute in your XML layout with the AppCompat library, or you can inflate a layout by providing a ContextThemeWrapper as context to your LayoutInflater.
I am using the AppCompat theme and I want set the minHeight attribute on my buttons:
<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/MyButtonStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="MyButtonStyle" parent="...?">
<item name="android:minHeight">60dp</item>
</style>
However, there is no Widget.AppCompat.Button style to set as the parent for MyButtonStyle. If I use android:Widget.Button, then all my buttons look like the old crappy style. I tried various other AppCompat themes like TextAppearance.AppCompat.Button, but they do not work.
Leaving out a parent theme for the button style also causes the button not to be styled correctly.
How can I customize the default Theme.AppCompat buttonStyle?
You can have Base.MyButtonStyle extend android:Widget.Holo.Button on API 14+ (in res/values-v14/styles.xml) and android:Widget.Material.Button on API 21+ (in res/values-v21/styles.xml. This style will change according to the device system version. Put your platform specific modifications here.
Then have MyButtonStyle extend Base.MyButtonStyle and define the android:minHeight here (in res/values/styles.xml). This will apply to all platforms.
You buttons then can use style MyButtonStyle.
This example assumes your minimum SDK is 14.
And yes, there's no appcompat-v7 button style (well, at least not yet).
EDIT
This assumes you're OK with Holo button on platforms older than Lollipop. It feels unobtrusive and if you can do without ripples, it should be just fine. If you want ripples I suggest you google for a third party lollipop button library.
To answer my own question, it appears AppCompat does not in fact support the Button widget presently:
AppCompat provides similar behaviour on earlier versions of Android
for a subset of UI widgets:
Everything provided by AppCompat’s toolbar (action modes, etc)
EditText
Spinner
CheckBox
RadioButton
Switch (use the new android.support.v7.widget.SwitchCompat)
CheckedTextView
The only workaround I see would be to recreate the Material button style from the Android source code, a task which extends outside the scope of my desire.
Custom Button Style With AppCompat +22
in your styles.xml
<style name="Button.Tinted" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">YOUR_TINT_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlHighlight">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item> </style>
in your layout.xml
<Button
android:id="#+id/but_next"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/but_continue"
android:theme="#style/Button.Tinted" />
With new MaterialComponent it is convenient to use com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton instead of regular Button.
But to style it, there is used the different attribute in the theme
- materialButtonStyle, with this parent theme Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight.NoActionBar.
Then the theme should look like this:
<style name="NewAppTheme"
parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight.NoActionBar">
.......
<-- IMPORTANT if you are using com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton to style them use this parameter
<item name="materialButtonStyle">#style/ButtonStyle</item>
</style>
And in ButtonStyle you can change button attributes like this:
<style name="ButtonStyle" parent="Widget.MaterialComponents.Button.UnelevatedButton">
<item name="android:minHeight">60dp</item>
</style>
Remove the android:
<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/MyButtonStyle</item>
</style>
https://stackoverflow.com/a/32363833
I am using the AppCompat theme and I want set the minHeight attribute on my buttons:
<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/MyButtonStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="MyButtonStyle" parent="...?">
<item name="android:minHeight">60dp</item>
</style>
However, there is no Widget.AppCompat.Button style to set as the parent for MyButtonStyle. If I use android:Widget.Button, then all my buttons look like the old crappy style. I tried various other AppCompat themes like TextAppearance.AppCompat.Button, but they do not work.
Leaving out a parent theme for the button style also causes the button not to be styled correctly.
How can I customize the default Theme.AppCompat buttonStyle?
You can have Base.MyButtonStyle extend android:Widget.Holo.Button on API 14+ (in res/values-v14/styles.xml) and android:Widget.Material.Button on API 21+ (in res/values-v21/styles.xml. This style will change according to the device system version. Put your platform specific modifications here.
Then have MyButtonStyle extend Base.MyButtonStyle and define the android:minHeight here (in res/values/styles.xml). This will apply to all platforms.
You buttons then can use style MyButtonStyle.
This example assumes your minimum SDK is 14.
And yes, there's no appcompat-v7 button style (well, at least not yet).
EDIT
This assumes you're OK with Holo button on platforms older than Lollipop. It feels unobtrusive and if you can do without ripples, it should be just fine. If you want ripples I suggest you google for a third party lollipop button library.
To answer my own question, it appears AppCompat does not in fact support the Button widget presently:
AppCompat provides similar behaviour on earlier versions of Android
for a subset of UI widgets:
Everything provided by AppCompat’s toolbar (action modes, etc)
EditText
Spinner
CheckBox
RadioButton
Switch (use the new android.support.v7.widget.SwitchCompat)
CheckedTextView
The only workaround I see would be to recreate the Material button style from the Android source code, a task which extends outside the scope of my desire.
Custom Button Style With AppCompat +22
in your styles.xml
<style name="Button.Tinted" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">YOUR_TINT_COLOR</item>
<item name="colorControlHighlight">#color/colorAccent</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/white</item> </style>
in your layout.xml
<Button
android:id="#+id/but_next"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/but_continue"
android:theme="#style/Button.Tinted" />
With new MaterialComponent it is convenient to use com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton instead of regular Button.
But to style it, there is used the different attribute in the theme
- materialButtonStyle, with this parent theme Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight.NoActionBar.
Then the theme should look like this:
<style name="NewAppTheme"
parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight.NoActionBar">
.......
<-- IMPORTANT if you are using com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton to style them use this parameter
<item name="materialButtonStyle">#style/ButtonStyle</item>
</style>
And in ButtonStyle you can change button attributes like this:
<style name="ButtonStyle" parent="Widget.MaterialComponents.Button.UnelevatedButton">
<item name="android:minHeight">60dp</item>
</style>
Remove the android:
<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="buttonStyle">#style/MyButtonStyle</item>
</style>
https://stackoverflow.com/a/32363833
There are the following Theme.AppCompat classes:
Theme.AppCompat
Theme.AppCompat.Light
Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar
Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar
Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar
Theme.AppCompat.DialogWhenLarge
Theme.AppCompat.Light.DialogWhenLarge
Theme.AppCompat.Dialog
Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog
Theme.AppCompat.CompactMenu
and the following ThemeOverlay.AppCompat classes:
ThemeOverlay.AppCompat
ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light
ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark
ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar
ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar
Why would one use ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.light vs Theme.AppCompat.Light for example? I see that there are much less attributes defined for ThemeOverlay -- I am curious what the intended use case for ThemeOverlay is.
Theme.AppCompat is used to set the global theme for the entire app. ThemeOverlay.AppCompat is used to override (or "overlay") that theme for specific views, especially the Toolbar.
Let's look at an example for why this is necessary.
App themes with an ActionBar
The ActionBar is normally shown in an app. I can choose it's color by setting the colorPrimary value. However, changing the theme changes the color of the text on the ActionBar.
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
Since my primary color is dark blue, I should probably use one of the themes that uses a light text color in the action bar because the black text is hard to read.
Hiding the ActionBar and using a Toolbar
The whole point of using Theme.AppCompat rather than Theme.Material is so that we can allow older versions of Android to use our material design theme. The problem is that older versions of Android don't support the ActionBar. Thus, the documentation recommends hiding the ActionBar and adding a Toolbar to your layout. To hide the ActionBar we have to use one of the NoActionBar themes. The following images show the Toolbar with the ActionBar hidden.
But what if I want something like a Light theme with a DarkActionBar? Since I have to use NoActionBar, that isn't an option.
Overriding the App Theme
Here is where ThemeOverlay comes in. I can specify the Dark ActionBar theme in my Toolbar xml layout.
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
...
android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
android:theme="#style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" />
This finally allows us to have the effect we want. The Dark.ActionBar theme overlays the Light app theme for this particular occasion.
App Theme: Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar
Toolbar Theme: ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar
If you wanted the popup menu to be light you could add this:
app:popupTheme="#style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light"
Further Study
I learned this through experimentation and through reading the following articles.
Setting Up the App Bar
Use android:theme and ThemeOverlay to theme specific Views and their descendents
Theming with AppCompat
Use colorPrimary to colorize your App Bar
Theme vs Style
Per this Theme vs Style blog post by the creator of AppCompat:
[ThemeOverlays] are special themes which overlay the normal Theme.Material themes, overwriting relevant attributes to make them either light/dark.
ThemeOverlay + ActionBar
The keen eyed of you will also have seen the ActionBar ThemeOverlay derivatives:
ThemeOverlay.Material.Light.ActionBar
ThemeOverlay.Material.Dark.ActionBar
These should only be used with the Action Bar via the new actionBarTheme attribute, or directly set on your Toolbar.
The only things these currently do differently to their parents is that they change the colorControlNormal to be android:textColorPrimary, thus making any text and icons opaque.