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action bar buttons not taking on background color and can't change background window color

I'm trying to do what I thought would be simple but after two days of searching for an answer, have given up. I am writing an app and I want the user to be able to switch from the Holo dark theme to the Holo light theme via preferences. Holo Light will be white window background with black text, and Holo dark will be the inverse. I also want them to be able to set the color of the action bar to something they like. Problem I'm having is when I succeed in flipping the background of the main window (by using android:background in styles.xml), the action bar icon and buttons do not take on the color of the action bar. If I use android:windowBackground in styles.xml, the action bar now looks fine and changes color, but the main window background does not. Here is the xml from styles.xml:
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- API 14 theme customizations can go here. -->
</style>
<style name="ThemeHoloDark" parent="android:Theme.Holo">
<item name="android:background">#color/background_holo_dark</item>
<item name="android:windowIsFloating">false</item>
<item name="android:windowContentOverlay">#null</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#0734f9</item>
<!-- blue -->
</style>
<style name="ThemeHoloLight" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:background">#color/background_holo_light</item>
<item name="android:windowIsFloating">false</item>
<item name="android:windowContentOverlay">#null</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#f90707</item>
</style>
The code I am using to switch theme is this:
if (themeLight == true )
setTheme( R.style.ThemeHoloLight);
else
setTheme( R.style.ThemeHoloDark);
actionBar = getActionBar();
setActionBarTheme(this, actionBar );
Here are some screenshots of what I'm talking about. The first couple show the action bar flipping from light to dark when the preferences are selected:
--Apparently I don't have enough reputation points to post images. :(
I have tried pretty much everything I have found on the web but must be missing something. Any help will be appreciated!

You need to create a seperate custom actionBarStyle like this . android:background in the ActionBarStyle will set the background for action bar.
<style name="ActionBarStyle" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/HoloTitleText</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/Red</item>
</style>
and set it to the main custom style .android:background in the ThemeHoloLight will set the background for window.
<style name="ThemeHoloLight" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:background">#color/DarkGreen</item>
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBarStyle</item>
</style>
You can also change the action bar title color like this
<style name="HoloTitleText" parent="android:TextAppearance.Holo">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/white</item>
</style>
Hope this is what your looking for.

How to change the overflow icon of the contextual action bar without changing it for the standard action bar?

My app's theme looks like shown in the following screenshot:
As the theme is based on Theme.Holo.Light which contains dark action bar texts and overflow icon, I adjusted the overflow icon using the following style:
<style name="ActionBar.Light" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/highlight</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/TextAppearance.ActionBar.Title.Light</item>
<item name="android:subtitleTextStyle">#style/TextAppearance.ActionBar.Subtitle.Light</item>
</style>
...
<style name="Theme.Light" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
...
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Light</item>
<item name="android:actionOverflowButtonStyle">#android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionButton.Overflow</item>
...
</style>
When one or more list entries are checked I want to show a white contextual action bar, but unfortunately the white overflow icon isn't visible on the white background:
Any idea on how to change the overflow icon only for the contextual bar -- either via style or programatically?
Final Workaround (February 27 2014)
It seems as there isn't an option to change the overflow icon of the contextual action bar independent from the one of the standard action bar. So I had no other choice but changing the background color of the contextual bar to a dark gray, to make the white overflow button visible:
The icons on the right are under my control, so it was easy to change them. The "done" icon on the left and the text (check counter) can easily be changed using theme attributes. Only the thin separator between the "done" icon and the check counter cannot be changed using attributes. They would require a custom layout -- that's why I left it how it is for now.
Here's my contextual bar style and the relevant part from the theme:
<style name="TextAppearance.ActionBar.Title" parent="#android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-light</item>
</style>
<style name="TextAppearance.ActionBar.Title.Light">
<item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
</style>
<style name="ContextualBar.Light" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionMode">
<item name="android:background">#666666</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/TextAppearance.ActionBar.Title.Light</item>
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#ffffff</item>
</style>
<style name="Theme.Light" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
...
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/ActionBar.Light</item>
<item name="android:actionModeStyle">#style/ContextualBar.Light</item>
<item name="android:actionModeCloseDrawable">#drawable/ic_action_done</item>
<item name="android:actionOverflowButtonStyle">#android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionButton.Overflow</item>
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#ffffff</item>
...
</style>
Ads: You can see the full result in the final app "uPod" which is available at Google play!

On your theme and assuming your using Appcompat
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
<item name="android:actionOverflowButtonStyle">#style/OverFlowStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="OverFlowStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.ActionButton.Overflow">
<item name="android:src">#drawable/your_selector_drawable_here</item>
</style>

Custom theme for a dark actionbar / tab bar

I am trying to set a custom actionbar for my app like so
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
<!-- API 11 theme customizations can go here. -->
<item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">#FFFFFF</item>
<item name="android:actionBarWidgetTheme">#style/MyActionWidgetTheme</item>
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/BasicActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="BasicActionBar" parent="android:Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#color/red</item>
</style>
when i don't include
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/BasicActionBar</item>
The actionbar and tab bar appear dark but i want to set the actionbar's color and keep the tabs dark. When i set the style the action bar changes color but the tabs turn to white.
I am pretty sure the problem is
parent="android:Widget.Holo.ActionBar"
I have tried any bunch of different possible values for this but can't find one that keeps the tab bar dark

this link helped me http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/
#style/Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse
did the trick

My action bar title is taking the wrong color from theme

I'm attempting to modify the theme for my application. I've been able to successfully set the background color for my app, and the background color for my action bar.
Unfortunately, the background color of the items WITHIN the action bar are taking the background color of the app, not the bg color of the action bar.
Here's my code from styles.xml
<!--
Base application theme for API 11+. This theme completely replaces
AppBaseTheme from res/values/styles.xml on API 11+ devices.
-->
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
</style>
<!-- Application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
<item name="android:background">#ff0000</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="#android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#fefefe</item>
</style>
and here's a screenshot of what's happening.
Hoping I'm missing something stupid here...
Thanks!

I'm pretty sure your theme background is being applied to everything. Instead, you only want the activity's background to be that color. So instead of setting the background color in the theme, you should set it for the activity. If you have many activities that will use this background color, then create a style for your activities and apply it to each one.

Try using:
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/your_color</item>
<item name="android:colorBackground">#color/your_color</item>
Worked for me.

Changing the action bar overflow icon to the dark version

In my application I am using my own theme based on the Theme.Holo.Light
However I have customised the actionBarStyle, setting the background drawable to a blue gradient to fit with my app's style.
However, with the Halo light theme, the action bar text is dark, & the default icons, such as the Up Nav arrow and the menu icon are dark, these don't go on my blue gradient.
As you can see from my XML below, I have managed to correct the title text colour but I can't find the attribute I need to override for the icons.
How can I change tell the theme to effectively use the icons on the ActionBar from Theme.Halo
instead of those Theme.Halo.Light but making the rest of my application remain using Theme.Halo.Light
Here's my current XML
<style name="MyLightTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:actionBarStyle">#style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>
<style name="MyActionBar" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
<item name="android:background">#drawable/blue_gradient_light</item>
<item name="android:titleTextStyle">#style/Theme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="Theme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle" parent="android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/solid_white</item>
</style>
Thanks for your help

Use Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar as your base if you want to do this. It will take care of these details.