perhaps I don't know how to search for that - everything I found only is about changing the app theme.
I want to know how I can develop a whole theme for the android device itself?
On the market you'll find many themes out there - how can I build one, too?
I don't want to use 3rd party licences (ThemeMaker etc)...anyone who has a tutorial for me?
Thanks for your help!
You should read up on the Android Developer site - Styles and Themes http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/themes.html
A style is a collection of properties that specify the look and format for a View or window. A style can specify properties such as height, padding, font color, font size, background color, and much more. A style is defined in an XML resource that is separate from the XML that specifies the layout.
Styles in Android share a similar philosophy to cascading stylesheets in web design—they allow you to separate the design from the content.
Apply a theme to an Activity or application
To set a theme for all the activities of your application, open the AndroidManifest.xml file and edit the <application> tag to include the android:theme attribute with the style name. For example:
<application android:theme="#style/CustomTheme">
If you like a theme, but want to tweak it, just add the theme as the parent of your custom theme. For example, you can modify the traditional light theme to use your own color like this:
<color name="custom_theme_color">#b0b0ff</color>
<style name="CustomTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/custom_theme_color</item>
<item name="android:colorBackground">#color/custom_theme_color</item>
</style>
Related
I am new to android and have a question about the styles.xml file.
Each item for example this
<item name="android:background">#color/black</item>
works both with "android:background" and with just "background".
What is the android: prefix there for?
When creating your own styles, you should always extend an existing style from the framework or support library so that you maintain compatibility with platform UI styles. To extend a style, specify the style you want to extend with the parent attribute. You can then override the inherited style attributes and add new ones.
For example, you can inherit the Android platform's default text appearance and modify it as follows:
<style name="GreenText" parent="#android:style/TextAppearance">
<item name="android:textColor">#00FF00</item>
</style>
However, you should always inherit your core app styles from the Android Support Library.
But if you don't inherit them from the android support library then too things will work the same!
Source: Explanation text and code taken from: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/look-and-feel/themes
You can read more about Styles and Themes from the above doc, from where I took the example to explain you!
Can anyone tell me how I can change my apps theme from the default ones made available? Holo and Holo.Light get a bit boring after a while.
The likes of Facebook, Google+, BBC Weather, Viber, Vine and Twitter all look very professional and have their own theme whereas the app I'm developing looks quite boring.
Is it possible to change the font of the text in my app? I know it's possible to change the colour and size of it.
Another thing which would be useful to know would be how to change the colour of the action bar that is used for my app. Currently it's black but I wouldn't mind changing it to a different colour than those used by the Android default themes (e.g. purple, green, blue, etc)
Maybe you can share some tips on what you think works well for Android design?
You can generate a custom theme at http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/
If you only want to change a few font an colors etc take a closer look at this (source:http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/themes.html)
If you like a theme, but want to tweak it, just add the theme as the parent of your custom theme. For example, you can modify the traditional light theme to use your own color like this:
<color name="custom_theme_color">#b0b0ff</color>
<style name="CustomTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/custom_theme_color</item>
<item name="android:colorBackground">#color/custom_theme_color</item>
</style>
(Note that the color needs to supplied as a separate resource here because the android:windowBackground attribute only supports a reference to another resource; unlike android:colorBackground, it can not be given a color literal.)
Now use CustomTheme instead of Theme.Light inside the Android Manifest:
<activity android:theme="#style/CustomTheme">
A create a simple Theme as
<style name='one'>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
However on viewing in the emulator the screen goes black.when i do not apply theme the screen has a white background .
what really happens here.i am just starting with android.
In addition ,if a apply a theme to my activity then the attributes of the theme applies to all components of my activity say button,textfields and edittexts .
why would i then write
android:textSize=?android:textSize
to reference value from the theme for any button in my layout when the same value would already be applying.
is the syntax above the correct way to reference an attribute from my theme to assign to attribute for any view in my layout.
thanks
tejinder
Yeah, so you need to do a little more reading.
Let's start with the basics,
You need to understand the differente betweent an Attribute, a Style, and a Theme.
An Attribute is something that can be styled. For instance: android:textSize is an attribute that can have any value.
A Style is a set of specific attributes that will be applied to a Widget. They are defined
in your /values/styles.xml
For instance:
<style name="normalTextThin" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.TextView">
<item name="android:gravity">left|center_vertical</item>
<item name="android:padding">8dp</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
<item name="android:textSize">16sp</item>
</style>
The styles can be applied either as part of a theme or directly as theme-independent.
Theme-indepentent styling of a widget is like this:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/text"
style="#style/normalTextThin"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
You are then theming only that one TextView.
A Theme is a collection of Styles that can be applied to a part of your UI, such a a whole Activity, or your whole Application.
For instance:
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="android:editTextStyle">#style/EditTextAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/ButtonAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:imageButtonStyle">#style/ImageButtonAppTheme</item>
</style>
Here, we are declaring that all EditText in your application will use the style named EditTextAppTheme, and so forth and on. When done like this, in order to actually have the theme be active, you declare it in the manifest:
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme" >
That means that you are not required to declare the style on each widget you create.
<EditText
android:id="#+id/input"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="#string/hint_search">
<requestFocus />
</EditText>
That widget right there would already be styled using EditTextAppTheme without the need of you explicitely declaring so.
I recommend you try to read on what attributes can be styled, how to style them, and so forth and on.
If you don't want to though, it's fine, you can still get a lot done with the following tools for styling:
ActionBarStyleGenerator to help you create styles for the ActionBar.
Android Holo Colors to help you style standard widgets.
Hope that helps.
Additional Info
Let me clarify on the whole ?attr/attributeName
The ? means that the system will choose the specific attributeName value for the current Configuration (not specific to different themes). This should be used only when you want the value to be different on different configurations. For example:
?android:attr/actionBarSize
This line is a dimension, and it will be different not based on the current theme, but on the current device screen size and orientation (values, values-land, values-sw600dp).
It's important to know that specifying ?android: means you are accessing preset Android values, not yours. If you have or want to create and use your own attribute values for specific configurations, you must do the following:
Create a file named attrs.xml on your /values/ folder.
Declare the desired custom attribute:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
<attr name="my_custom_attr" format="reference" />
</resources>
Declare a value for the custom attribute, let's say on your own theme.
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light">
<item name="my_custom_attr">#resource_type/resource_name</item>
<item name="android:editTextStyle">#style/EditTextAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/ButtonAppTheme</item>
<item name="android:imageButtonStyle">#style/ImageButtonAppTheme</item>
</style>
And then you can use it on the Widget you'd like:
Hope that clears things out.
EDIT 2
For a better answer to your question, please update your question. And like I said, read more on how to properly create styles.
The Theme named 'one', what do you want to apply it to? An activity, a Widget, the whole Application?
How are you applying the theme? Show the lines of code where you specify the usage of theme 'one'.
Your theme as you specified is simply not a properly constructed theme/style.
<style name='one'>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
This says absolutely nothing, and it is definitely not suitable for an Activity-level theme. The reason you specify a parent is so your theme can inherit all of the attributes from the parent, and then you specifiy which ones to change.
For instance, if you want to use your theme and have a light background, do this:
<style name='one' parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light>
<item name='android:textColor'>#eea</item>
<item name='android:textSize'>20sp</item>
</style>
But even here, despite the fact that it will apply, you don't want to have the same text color and size for the whole application do you? That'd be nonsense, different text color and sizes account for a big part of the user experience, so rather than setting those values from what we can refer to as the main style, we can create substyles and apply them to certain widgets.
I can't really go any more detailed that what I already have, the above explains how to accomplish Widget-specific styling, and activity/application level theming.
For a complete start-up guide, read the Android Developer Site, try the test styles declared there, see how they work, and until then try to create your own, don't try to create something out of nowhere if no reading has been made.
My calculator app consists of 30 buttons. I want to provide themes for the calculator keypad. A theme changes button background (gradients, not image backgrounds) and font. Some themes have the same color for all buttons while some have a color for numbers, another color for operators and so on.
The color change is using selectors from res/drawable/*.xml
How do I change the theme via the code?
Hopefully avoiding typing:
button.setBackground(Drawable background);
button.setTypeface(font);
30 times. And if I have 5 themes, then 30 * 5 * 2 = 300 lines of codes!!
I'm new to this and if there is no other way I'll go with the 150 lines.
Also how do I save the user theme selection? Using preferences?
You can create a custom XML theme which will change all of your XML components. After creating a new theme, go into the Android Manifest file and change the theme. For example:
<activity
android:name="com.myapp.MyActivity"
...
android:theme="#style/MyCustomTheme" />
To create the theme, go to res/values/themes.xml and create a new theme with an identifier:
<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomTheme" parent="android:style/Theme">
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">#ffff0000</item>
</style>
...
</resources>
By using this method, you can create an extensive library of different themes and change to what theme you want.
NOTE: This is not just for changing the background, but it can also be used to change the theme of the buttons. Visit this website for more information:
http://janrain.com/blog/introduction-to-android-theme-customization/
EDIT: As that user commented, it is possible that you can put the function to change the theme of the button in a for() loop.
For your case, I have derived this from the link above. It will change the texture of the buttons in your XML file rather than in Java.
"Using a Custom Nine-Patch With Buttons
A nine-patch drawable is a special kind of image which can be scaled in width and height while maintaining its visual integrity. Nine-patches are the most common way to specify the appearance of Android buttons, though any drawable type can be used.
Example nine-patch PNG.
Notice the one pixel black lines around the edge, they control the scaling of the image.
Save this bitmap as MyApplication/res/drawable/my_nine_patch.9.png
Define a new style (you can define the new style in the same file that you defined your custom theme from Creating a Custom Android Theme above) …:
<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomButton" parent="android:Widget.Button">
<item name="android:background">#drawable/my_nine_patch</item>
</style>
...
</resources>
Apply the new button style to the buttonStyle attribute of your custom theme:
<resources>
...
<style name="MyCustomTheme" parent=...>
...
<item name="android:buttonStyle">#style/MyCustomButton</item>
</style>
...
</resources>
Now the buttons in the activities your theme is applied to have custom images. However, you may notice that they don’t change appearance when selected. Read Selector Drawables below for an introduction to using multiple drawables to define one drawable that changes based on state."
From here, you can change certain components of the theme (such as the button texture as an image).
After you have a theme that looks good, apply it in the Android Manifest as I mentioned above.
I will FURTHER edit this if it still does not answer your question.
I'm trying to make a custom titlebar for my first Android application.
While I can find lots on the web about how to make them so you can change colours etc, I want my titlebar to look the same as the "standard" titlebar, but with a button that I can configure. This means copying the device's currently active themes to be able to style it in exactly the same way.
Not all devices simply use a gradient in the titlebar style, so adding a gradient (as suggested in other SO questions) doesn't really make sense.
Does anyone have any pointers how to read the style information?
try to extend an existing theme e.g.
create your own style which can ofcourse extend from existing from an existing theme. change the windowNoTitle to true.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="noTitleBarStyle" parent="android:Theme.Black">
<item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/darkGrey</item>
<item name="android:colorForeground">#ff3333</item>
</style></resources>
or try to do it runtime as discussed here
Android - change custom title view at run time
I hope this helps.