I use a RecyclerView and a simple item layout consisting of a ConstraintLayout holding the text elements of each item. I want to set the background of all items while
showing a ripple effect when clicked.
visualizing when the view is active.
being able to set the colors. (optional, if it really has to be)
The minimum SDK version is 21 and is allowed to be raised if required.
What I tried:
Using #android:drawable/list_selector_background is not customizable and did not show a ripple.
Using ?selectableItemBackground or ?selectableItemBackgroundBorderless does not work, it throws an exception at runtime (Failed to resolve attribute [...]). I do have the design support library placed in my gradle script, or now the com.google.android.material package. Prepending android:attr/ produced the same error.
Using a StateListDrawable to build it all by myself using many <ripple> Drawables seemed overly complicated since I did not want to reproduce the whole functionality of above features.
This answer linked by #Cheticamp combined with the approach in this article worked fine:
The layout of an item looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/list_item_background_active_handler">
<include
layout="#layout/the_actual_layout"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="?selectableItemBackground" />
</FrameLayout>
And the list_item_background_active_handler looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:drawable="#color/listBackgroundActive" android:state_activated="true" />
<!-- default -->
<item android:drawable="#android:color/transparent" />
</selector>
This allows for handling the active state with a custom color. Simply call isActivated(true) on the view of an item in onBindViewHolder() in the adapter.
The color of the ripple effect can be customized with this approach.
I have this button:
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_action"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme.Button.Toolbar"/>
And this style:
<style name="AppTheme.Button.Toolbar" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Borderless">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/main</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#color/secondary</item>
</style>
Even though the style inherits from Widget.AppCompat.Button.Borderless, the button still has a border.
Changing Button to android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatButton did not help.
How to remove the border then?
Edit:
Setting background of the button is not an option - by doing so the animation of ripple effect is lost.
Edit 2:
Things become even more interesting.
Tried to change android:theme to style as #cadet suggested.
When button is defined this way:
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_action"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:theme="#style/ToolbarButton"/>
That's what I get:
The colors apply, but there is distinct border.
If I just change theme to style:
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_action"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
style="#style/ToolbarButton"/>
I get this:
There is no border, and the style is applied only partially (text is colored, button is not)
Edit 3:
Friends, I'm looking for a way to get borderless, styled button with ripple effects using styling approach. Hacking each and every button separately in layout files might work, but that's not the point.
Try this, hope out of this one may help you
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_photo_lib"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:onClick="startPhotoLibAction"
android:src="#drawable/library_blau_2"
style="?android:attr/borderlessButtonStyle"/>
or
android:background="#null"
set background #null. or set own created background
android:background="#null"
You can use a different View instead of Button
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/btn_action_alternative"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:clickable="true" />
I found a better solution, you'll wanna create a custom drawable and depending on the min version your app supports, you'll need to create two, one for Android versions pre-21(Lollipop) and another for post 21(Lollipop). The two files will need to be named identically so Android can find them and match them appropriatly based on the API level. But in the file drawable file for API 21 and above your file should look like such:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ripple xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:color="?android:colorControlHighlight">
<item android:drawable="#drawable/button_normal"/>
</ripple>
This Drawable file is wrapping another Drawable that is your preferred background image or color with a ripple whose color is defined using "?android:colorControlHighlight", which is simple a reference to a default color from what ever theme the current activity is using.
If you need to support pre-21(Lollipop), your drawable file would simply be a selector, with the preferred drawable. Your preferred drawable should be the same background color, or even a transparent color to make sure you can see your parent layouts background color. Similar to this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:drawable="#drawable/button_normal"/>
</selector>
You can combine this with a style in order to apply the borderless style to all buttons it to all buttons in a layout... I recommend you use a transparent drawable so you can use this style with all buttons regardless if their parent has a different color background. This will prevent you from making several themes with different backgrounds.
To handle versioning support, or even config support if you'd like custom drawables based on various device configurations, you would just create several drawable folders with a configuration specific suffix. So, for example, drawables only for version 21 and above you'd create a folder called 'drawable-21'.
I found a website that better explains what I'm talking about.
I am trying to match the style of a website with my app and on the website there is always a 10 pixel border around every page that just shows the background. I am trying to set up my activities to include that with themes, so I don't need to pad every layout I write. Is there a way for me to theme this? I've been looking through all of the available theme items and haven't been able to find it, but this is my first time using themes.
I would approach this task by setting up a margin or padding in your top layer container in the hierarchy of views in activity.
First, define an attribute.
res/attr.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<attr name="desiredActivityBorder" format="dimension" />
</resources>
Then, in your layout for activty use this atribute:
layout/your_activiy.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
android:width="match_parent"
android:height="match_parent"
android:padding="?desiredActivityBorder">
... your views go in here ...
</LinearLayout>
Of course this assumes that your LinearLayout background is transparent so one can see through to background beneath.
All you have to do know is to set a value for this attribute in your theme.
<style name="YourTheme" parent="Holo.Theme ">
<item name=" desiredActivityBorder">10dp</item>
</style>
I want to use a Button in my android app but I want to customize how it looks. However, I want the highlight and selected colors of the button to be the same as the default colors (i.e. the dark and light orange gradients, or whatever the theme color supplies).
Is there anyway to get the default highlight/selected drawables and to use that as the fill for my buttons on the selected and highlighted states?
Thanks!
You are asking for two different things, do you want the drawables or the colorcode?
Anyway, you can find the name of the drawables here: http://androiddrawableexplorer.appspot.com/
I don't know if you can use them directly from your app or if you have to save them to your drawables folder first, but you can find them in your sdk. If you want the colorcodes, use gimp to extract them from the pictures.
It seems that you can use a selector as drawable inside a selector!
(You can or should not use #android:drawable/btn_default_selected, because it is private)
This meens that you can write your own selecter and use the whole default android selector for the items you want the default behavior for.
I used this selector
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item android:drawable="#android:drawable/btn_default" android:state_pressed="true"/>
</selector>
And added it to as background to a linear layout.
I don't know why, but this messed up the padding/margin as well, thats why i set them to 0.
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/background_linear_layout_button"
android:padding="0dp"
android:layout_margin="0dp"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<!-- YOUR LAYOUT THAT ACTS LIKE A BUTTON -->
</LinearLayout>
The Result is that you have the parent background color in the unpressed state and the android background color for the pressed state.
Selectors are what you're looking for. Google around for tutorials. Here's one.
I Suppose you can find the Default Selector in the Android Source Code.
I want to be able to change the background color to white in my android app in the simplest way possible.
You need to use the android:background property , eg
android:background="#color/white"
Also you need to add a value for white in the strings.xml
<color name="white">#FFFFFF</color>
Edit : 18th Nov 2012
The first two letters of an 8 letter color code provide the alpha value, if you are using the html 6 letter color notation the color is opaque.
Eg :
You can also use
android:background="#ffffff"
in your xml layout or /res/layout/activity_main.xml, or you can change the theme in your AndroidManifest.xml by adding
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Light"
to your activity tag.
If you want to change the background dynamically, use
YourView.setBackgroundColor(Color.argb(255, 255, 255, 255));
Simplest way
android:background="#android:color/white"
No need to define anything. It uses predefined colors in android.R.
To change the background color in the simplest way possible programmatically (exclusively - no XML changes):
LinearLayout bgElement = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.container);
bgElement.setBackgroundColor(Color.WHITE);
Only requirement is that your "base" element in the activity_whatever.xml has an id which you can reference in Java (container in this case):
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/container"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
...
</LinearLayout>
Paschalis and James, who replied here, kind of lead me to this solution, after checking out the various possibilities in How to set the text color of TextView in code?.
Hope it helps someone!
The simplest way is to add android:background="#FFFFFF" to the main node in the layout.xml or /res/layout/activity_main.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:padding="10dp"
android:textSize="20sp"
android:background="#FFFFFF">
</TextView>
This method worked for me:
RelativeLayout relativeLayout = (RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.layout.rootLayout);
relativeLayout.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.bg_color_2));
Set id in layout xml
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:id="#+id/rootLayout"
android:background="#color/background_color"
Add color values/color.xml
<color name="bg_color_2">#ffeef7f0</color>
The best way using background with gradient as it does not increase app size of your app images are poison for android app so try to use it less instead of using one color as a background you can use multiple colors in one background.
You can try this in xml sheet:
android:background="#color/background_color"
In Layout,to change background use this.
android:background="#color/your_color"
In Program can be use this. For eg: Texview background color
TextView tvName = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.tvName);
tvName.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.your_color));
go to Activity_Main.xml
there are design view / and text view .
choose Text view
write this code up:
android:background="#color/colorAccent"
I want to be able to change the background color to white in my
android app in the simplest way possible.
The question says Simplest Way, so here it is.
Set parentViewStyle in all your parent views. Like most parent view of your activity, fragment and dialogs.
<LinearLayout style="#style/parentViewStyle">
... other components inside
</LinearLayout>
Just put this style inside res>values>styles.xml
<style name="parentViewStyle">
<item name="android:layout_height">match_parent</item>
<item name="android:layout_width">match_parent</item>
<item name="android:background">#color/white</item> // set your color here.
<item name="android:orientation">vertical</item>
</style>
By this way, you don't have to change background color many times in future.
you can try with this way
android:background="#color/white"
You can use simple color resources, specified usually inside
res/values/colors.xml.
use
<color name="red">#ffff0000</color>
and use this via android:background="#color/red". This color can be used anywhere else too, e.g. as a text color. Reference it in XML the same way, or get it in code via
getResources().getColor(R.color.red).
You can also use any drawable resource as a background, use android:background="#drawable/mydrawable" for this (that means 9patch drawables, normal bitmaps, shape drawables, ..).
Some times , the text has the same color that background, try with android:background="#CCCCCC" into listview properties and you will can see that.
android:background="#64B5F6"
You can change the value after '#' according to your own specification or need depending on how you want to use them.
Here is a sample code:
<TextView
android:text="Abir"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="24sp"
android:background="#D4E157" />
Thank you :)
This code can be useful for you:
android:background="#fff"
For Kotlin and not only, when you write
#color/
you can choose whatever you want, fast and simply:
android:background="#color/md_blue_900"
Another way, go to layout -> your .xml file -> design view .Then go component tree and select layout you want to change color . In below component tree there is properties section .Select background in the properties section (In picture section 1). Then click section 2 in picture . Then Resources window will be open .From that select color menu .Then choose color you want .enter image description here
If you would like to add background color to the entire activity
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#1de9b6"
tools:context="com.example.abc.myapplication.MainActivity">
</RelativeLayout>
If you would like to use background for a view
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Andrios"
android:background="#color/colorAccent" />
Hope this helps!
change_color.setBackground(getDrawable(R.color.purple_700));
This approach worked for when I tried changing colors on click.