Develop Reference

Editing activity theme

I'm trying to edit theme like this:
<style name="MyAppTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.DeviceDefault.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/colorPrimary</item>
</style>
But this colours my whole activity. Instead I want only action bar to be coloured with my custom color. How to achieve this?
Edit:
I've managed to achieve desired result by using Theme Editor and creating custom theme with it.

Try this
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/colorAccent</item>
and please read this for more info

Use AppCompat theme. Specify colorPrimaryatribute since the ActionBar background color depends on it.
<style name="MyAppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/colorPrimary</item>
</style>

Also you can try it like this ,
Use a parent style and declare your whatever Widget style inside the parent one.Here use android:actionBarStyle
See the example below
<resources>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">ANY_HEX_COLOR_CODE</item>
</style>
</resources>
set MyTheme in your activity
Note : ActionBar will not work for your target environment which is at API level 10

Why isn't the action bar text color changing?

I am on android lollipop and using the following style as my theme MyNavigationDrawerTheme
in styles v14
<style name="MyNavigationDrawerTheme" parent="MaterialNavigationDrawerTheme.Light">
<item name="actionMenuTextColor">#color/white</item>
</style>
in material drawer theme.xml (mostly irrelevant to this issue)
<style name="MaterialNavigationDrawerTheme.Light" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar" >
<item name="drawerType">#integer/DRAWERTYPE_ACCOUNTS</item>
<item name="drawerColor">#fafafa</item>
</style>
I understand that the theme Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar has black text for the action bar but why isn't it changing when I include the line
<item name="actionMenuTextColor">#color/white</item>
I have been trying to fix this for almost two days now tried so many things (eg here) but nothing works
Any idea

you could try this in styles.xml:
<style name="MyNavigationDrawerTheme" parent="MaterialNavigationDrawerTheme.Light">
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#color/white</item>
<item name="android:actionMenuTextAppearance">#style/TextAppearance.ActionMenu
</item>
</style>
<style name="TextAppearance.ActionMenu">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
</style>
ps:
yeah ,sometimes it won't works only by android:actionMenuTextColor ,such as Galaxy S4
just add attr android:actionMenuTextAppearance

In case you are using Toolbar, this is how you do it -
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">#android:color/holo_red_dark</item>
<item name="textColorPrimary">#android:color/holo_red_dark</item>
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
</style>
Should work like a charm :)

How to set background color of android app and background of action bar

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!

Android ActionBar not changing background color

I am trying to change the background color of my action bar but it doesnt change. My app is using the AppCompat theme if that affects anything.
Here is my theme that is being used. My app points to use this theme so that is not the problem
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- Action Bar Styles -->
<style name="ActionBar" parent="Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/blue</item>
<item name="background">#color/blue</item>
</style>

In your ActionBar style, delete the android:background, only keep the background attribute. Also make sure to implement your AppTheme in the application tag or in the activities extending the action bar in your AndroidManifest.xml file. I've also added the "#style/" attribute before Widget.AppCompat since its a default style defined in the android library.
Your code should look like this :
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- Action Bar Styles -->
<style name="ActionBar" parent="#style/Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar">
<item name="background">#0000ff</item>
</style>

You can se this from code as well
ab.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(newcolor));
Just in case your xml is not working

According to this link, https://developer.android.com/reference/android/R.attr.html#background
it doesn't seem to take color resource, so you either give it a hex color value or create a drawable that uses the color you want. You could try the following alternative to see if it works.
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar</item>
</style>
<!-- Action Bar Styles -->
<style name="ActionBar" parent="Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#0000ff</item>
<item name="background">#0000ff</item>
</style>

How to set custom ActionBar color / style?

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.