I am trying to modify my app to have a dark blue action bar with a light blue background. So far I have only been able to make the entire app dark blue. How can I modify my code to keep the action bar the color it is now but make the background with the team numbers a light blue? Please note my apps minimum API is 14.
I am currently using the following code in my styles.xml:
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/teamLightBlue</item>
</style>
<!-- Activity themes -->
<style name="Theme.Base" parent="android:Theme.Light" />
<style name="Theme.Sample" parent="Theme.Base" />
<!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme"
parent="AppTheme">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBarTheme</item>
</style>
<!-- ActionBar styles -->
<style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/teamDarkBlue</item>
</style>
If you choose to use Theme.AppCompat, you can change Action Bar's background color using:
<item name="colorPrimary">#ffffff</item>
but if you choose the Holo one, you can change that color using
<item name="android:colorPrimary">#ffffff</item>
Hope this helps.
As far as I know your code is good instead of Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar as its not part of AppCompat v7. Use this instead
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="AppTheme">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle" tools:ignore="NewApi">#style/MyActionBarTheme</item>
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBarTheme</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">#color/teamDarkBlue</item>
<item name="background">#color/teamDarkBlue</item>
</style>
It should work fine!
Currently I am working on a little android app. I try to change the background color of the ActionBar's dropdown menu. So far I was only able to change the background color of the ActionBar itself, but not of the dropdown menu. It simply does not change the color. Here is some code from my styles.xml:
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light"></style>
<!-- Application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
<!-- All customizations that are NOT specific to a particular API-level can go here. -->
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBarStyle</item>
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBarStyle</item>
<item name="android:actionDropDownStyle">#style/MyActionDropDownStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBarStyle" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
<item name="background">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionDropDownStyle" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.Spinner.DropDown.ActionBar">
<item name="background">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
<item name="android:popupBackground">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
<item name="android:dropDownSelector">#color/background_color_action_bar</item>
</style>
The MyActionBarStyle part works but the MyActionDropDownStyle does not. I suppose that the parent of MyActionDropDownStyle might be wrong. Maybe someone of you has an idea and can help me.
Thanks in advance!
I am using Android Navigation bar in my project,
I want to change the top color in action bar to something red, How can i do that?
I have something like this,
and i want something like this,
how can i achieve that?
You can define the color of the ActionBar (and other stuff) by creating a custom Style:
Simply edit the res/values/styles.xml file of your Android project.
For example like this:
<resources>
<style name="MyCustomTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBarTheme</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">ANY_HEX_COLOR_CODE</item>
</style>
</resources>
Then set "MyCustomTheme" as the Theme of your Activity that contains the ActionBar.
You can also set a color for the ActionBar like this:
ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.RED)); // set your desired color
Taken from here: How do I change the background color of the ActionBar of an ActionBarActivity using XML?
In general Android OS leverages a “theme” to allow app developers to globally apply a universal set of UI element styling parameters to Android applications as a whole, or, alternatively, to a single Activity subclass.
So there are three mainstream Android OS “system themes,” which you can specify in your Android Manifest XML file when you are developing apps for Version 3.0 and later versions
I am referring the (APPCOMPAT)support library here:--
So the three themes are
1. AppCompat Light Theme (Theme.AppCompat.Light)
AppCompat Dark Theme(Theme.AppCompat),
And a hybrid between these two ,AppCompat Light Theme with the Darker ActionBar.( Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar)
AndroidManifest.xml and see the tag, the android theme is mentioned as:-- android:theme="#style/AppTheme"
Open the Styles.xml and we have base application theme declared there:--
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
</style>
We need to override these parent theme elements to style the action bar.
ActionBar with different color background:--
To do this we need to create a new style MyActionBar(you can give any name) with a parent reference to #style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse that holds the style characteristics for the Android ActionBar UI element. So definition would be
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="background">#color/red</item>
</style>
And this definition we need to reference in our AppTheme, pointing to overridden ActionBar styling as--
#style/MyActionBar
Change the title bar text color (e.g black to white):--
Now to change the title text color, we need to override the parent reference parent="#style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
So the style definition would be
<style name="MyActionBarTitle" parent="#style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
</style>
We’ll reference this style definition inside the MyActionBar style definition, since the TitleTextStyle modification is a child element of an ActionBar parent OS UI element. So the final definition of MyActionBar style element will be
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="background">#color/red</item>
<item name="titleTextStyle">#style/MyActionBarTitle</item>
</style>
SO this is the final Styles.xml
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<!-- This is the styling for action bar -->
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="background">#color/red</item>
<item name="titleTextStyle">#style/MyActionBarTitle</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBarTitle" parent="#style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
</style>
</resources>
For further ActionBar options Menu styling, refer this link
For Android 3.0 and higher only
When supporting Android 3.0 and higher only, you can define the action bar's background like this:
res/values/themes.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="#style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- ActionBar styles -->
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">#ff0000</item>
</style>
</resources>
For Android 2.1 and higher
When using the Support Library, your style XML file might look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="#style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
<!-- Support library compatibility -->
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- ActionBar styles -->
<style name="MyActionBar"
parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
<item name="android:background">#drawable/actionbar_background</item>
<!-- Support library compatibility -->
<item name="background">#drawable/actionbar_background</item>
</style>
</resources>
Then apply your theme to your entire app or individual activities:
for more details Documentaion
You can change action bar color on this way:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/green_action_bar</item>
</style>
Thats all you need for changing action bar color.
Plus if you want to change the status bar color just add the line:
<item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">#color/green_dark_action_bar</item>
Here is a screenshot taken from developer android site to make it more clear, and here is a link to read more about customizing the color palete
Another possibility of making.
actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.parseColor("#0000ff")));
I can change ActionBar text color by using titleTextColor
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="titleTextColor">#333333</item>
</style>
Custom Color:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/ColorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/ColorPrimaryDark</item>
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
</style>
Custom Style:
<style name="Theme.AndroidDevelopers" parent="android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:selectableItemBackground">#drawable/ad_selectable_background</item>
<item name="android:popupMenuStyle">#style/MyPopupMenu</item>
<item name="android:dropDownListViewStyle">#style/MyDropDownListView</item>
<item name="android:actionBarTabStyle">#style/MyActionBarTabStyle</item>
<item name="android:actionDropDownStyle">#style/MyDropDownNav</item>
<item name="android:listChoiceIndicatorMultiple">#drawable/ad_btn_check_holo_light</item>
<item name="android:listChoiceIndicatorSingle">#drawable/ad_btn_radio_holo_light</item>
</style>
For More: Android ActionBar
As I was using AppCompatActivity above answers didn't worked for me. But the below solution worked:
In res/styles.xml
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
</style>
PS: I've used colorPrimary instead of android:colorPrimary
in the style.xml add this code
<resources>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyAction</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#333333</item>
</style>
</resources>
Use this - http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/
Good tool to customize your actionbar with a live preview in couple of minutes.
I am currently writing an application for devices on 2.3 - 4.2+ and am having some weird, and unexpected issues. It was working fine until and displaying on all devices before I attempted to theme it. Even with a simple style simply extending the action bar sherlock theme, there appears to be no action bar showing.
The setup for the styles.
<style name="FrameworkRoot.Theme" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- API 11+ (compatibility) -->
<item name="buttonBarStyle">#style/Compat.ButtonBar</item>
<item name="buttonBarButtonStyle">#style/Compat.ButtonBarButton</item>
<item name="indeterminateProgressStyle">#style/Compat.IndeterminateProgress</item>
<!-- API 14+ (compatibility) -->
<item name="listPreferredItemPaddingLeft">#dimen/compat_list_preferred_item_padding_left</item>
<item name="listPreferredItemPaddingRight">#dimen/compat_list_preferred_item_padding_right</item>
<item name="listPreferredItemHeightSmall">#dimen/compat_list_preferred_item_height_small</item>
</style>
<style name="Theme.Base" parent="FrameworkRoot.Theme">
<item name="textHeaderMaxLines">#integer/text_header_max_lines</item>
<item name="trackAbstractMaxLines">#integer/track_abstract_max_lines</item>
<item name="activatableItemBackground">#drawable/activatable_item_background</item>
</style>
<!-- Base themes for the app -->
<style name="Theme.TestApp" parent="Theme.Base">
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/Widget.TestApp.ActionBar</item>
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/Widget.TestApp.ActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- Base Action Bar Style -->
<style name="Widget.TestApp.ActionBar" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar">
</style>
If I remove the:
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/Widget.TestApp.ActionBar</item>
So that the action bar itself it not getting styled in 3.0+, I can't style the bar.
What would be the best way to set this up? AndroidManifest.xml is pointing the app's style at "Theme.TestApp".
My end goal is to have a custom background on the action bar, as well as custom tab selector colors and fonts. What would be the best way to go about this, as my current method isn't working well.
You have to set an attribute for ActionBarSherlock and the native ActionBar. So replace this for example:
<style name="Theme.Base" parent="FrameworkRoot.Theme">
<item name="textHeaderMaxLines">#integer/text_header_max_lines</item>
<item name="trackAbstractMaxLines">#integer/track_abstract_max_lines</item>
<item name="activatableItemBackground">#drawable/activatable_item_background</item>
</style>
With this:
<style name="Theme.Base" parent="FrameworkRoot.Theme">
<item name="textHeaderMaxLines">#integer/text_header_max_lines</item>
<item name="trackAbstractMaxLines">#integer/track_abstract_max_lines</item>
<item name="activatableItemBackground">#drawable/activatable_item_background</item>
<item name="android:textHeaderMaxLines">#integer/text_header_max_lines</item>
<item name="android:trackAbstractMaxLines">#integer/track_abstract_max_lines</item>
<item name="android:activatableItemBackground">#drawable/activatable_item_background</item>
</style>
The attributes with the 'android' prefix point to the internal resources for the native ActionBar, the attributes without the 'android' in front point to the resources of the ActionBarSherlock.
I'm trying to create a new theme and customize the action bar:
<resources>
<style name="Theme.Shappy.Red" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Shappy.Red</item>
...
... [some_other_customizations]
</style>
<!-- Action bar -->
<style name="ActionBar.Shappy.Red" parent="#style/Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid">
<item name="android:background">#ffb70000</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/ActionBar.Title.Shappy.Red</item>
</style>
<!-- Action bar text -->
<style name="ActionBar.Title.Shappy.Red" parent="#style/TextAppearance.Sherlock.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:textColor">#ddffffff</item>
</style>
</resources>
As you can see, I'm using Sherlock. This code works fine for API level 14, but it doesn't work for API level 10. I still see the Holo light like action bar.
I think the code is correct because [some_other_customizations] are applied correctly.
Do you have any suggestion? Thanks.
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Shappy.Red</item>
and everything else with "android:" infront of it applies to the default actionbar. You have to put this in your styles as well:
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Shappy.Red</item>
This overrides the styles of the ABS.
So your Styles should look like this in order to work in API Levels 13<:
<style name="Theme.Shappy.Red" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Shappy.Red</item>
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Shappy.Red</item>
</style>
<!-- Action bar -->
<style name="ActionBar.Shappy.Red" parent="#style/Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid">
<item name="android:background">#ffb70000</item>
<item name="background">#ffb70000</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/ActionBar.Title.Shappy.Red</item>
<item name="titleTextStyle">#style/ActionBar.Title.Shappy.Red</item>
</style>
<!-- Action bar text -->
<style name="ActionBar.Title.Shappy.Red" parent="#style/TextAppearance.Sherlock.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:textColor">#ddffffff</item>
<item name="textColor">#ddffffff</item>
</style>