I am building a sample application based on latest version of Android OS..As per instructions given here I am trying to give holo:light theme to only one button in my application. How do i do it ? I have created a myStyles.xml in res/values folder but I am not able to find property to apply holo-light theme.
This is what i have in myStyles.xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="mybutton" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light">
<item name="android:background">#android:color/holo_orange_light</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#android:color/holo_blue_dark</item>
</style>
</resources>
this is i have in my activity.
<Button
android:id="#+id/button1"
style="#style/mybutton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="lol" />
I can confirm that backgroundcolor and textcolor are getting applied...(done this for testing purpose).
Currently, If i add android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light" to AndroidManifest.xml, holo light theme is applied to entire application. However, I want this theme to be applied for only few controls ( in this case a single button control).
A theme is a style applied to an entire Activity or application, rather than an individual View.
Thus, what you are asking for is not possible. That being said, it seems odd that you would want to do this anyway. I suggest applying the holo theme to your entire app, and then customizing your Buttons only if you really need to. This is probably what the user will expect from your application.
Related
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.
All I want to do is change the accent color of my android app, but I'm having a tough time figuring out how to do that. The default for android is blue now, but I want to make it orange.
By accent color, I mean the accent of navigation tabs, the color that highlights when you hit lists, the accent color in pop up dialogs, etc.
I'm using actionbarsherlock if that matters.
Here is an image. I'd like to change the color of that blue accent throughout the app:
It's been some time since you asked this question but now that google has released a new AppCompat version you can do what you want to achieve quite simply. The answer I'm giving you is inspired from android developer blog support library 2.2.1.
Add the support library to your project (I am assuming you are using Android Studio).
For that add these lines to the app.graddle file (assuming your module is named app).
dependencies {
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:22.2.0'
}
Set the theme of your application
These lines are to be added to your styles.xml file. As you can see there are a few items in this style. If you want to know what element they correspond to go check customize android status bar with material.
colorAccent is the color you want to change in the first place.
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat">
<item name="colorPrimary">#color/primary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">#color/primaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">#color/accent</item>
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">#color/textColorPrimary</item>
<item name="android:windowBackground">#color/windowBackground</item>
<item name="android:navigationBarColor">#color/navigationBarColor</item>
</style>
You will also need to set your application theme in the Android manifest
<application
android:theme="#style/AppTheme" >
...
</application>
Change From Activity / ActionBarActivity to AppCompatActivity in your classes.
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity
{
....
}
You will probably need to change some methods due to the AppCompatActivity. Look at the video in the first link to better understand that :)
Change your widgets to the AppCompat ones
<LineareLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView
android:id="#+id/text"
android:text="#string/hello_world"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatButton
android:id="#+id/btn_start"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/btn_start" />
</RelativeLayout>
Et voilà ! That's it you're all set :) You can now change the Accent color easily.
You're going to want to use state layout lists.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/res/ColorStateList.html
You might need to make one of these for each of the widgets that is going to have a new default selected color.
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.
i have a title bar one of my project and i want to use my all screen.I think that i can do be a general( means i want a something and i will call everywhere like a style tag or theme tag) i have no idea.What can i use for?
My title bar is here:
RelativeLayout
android:layout_height="44dip"
android:layout_width="320dip"
android:background="#drawable/merhaba_header_320_44dip">
<ImageView
android:layout_height="32dip"
android:layout_width="121dip"
android:background="#drawable/merhaba_logo_121_32dip"
android:layout_centerInParent="true">
</ImageView>
<ImageView
android:layout_height="30dip"
android:layout_width="64dip"
android:background="#drawable/merhaba_btn_nedir_64_30dip"
android:layout_margin="5dip"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true">
</ImageView>
</RelativeLayout>
Hi DuyguK are you asking for a way to have a title bar that you can apply as a theme or something to all the activities in your app?
If that's so, I would recommend you to do the following.
First define a style in your res/values/styles.xml
<resources>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="android:style/Theme.Light">
<item name="android:windowTitleSize">44dip</item>
//whatever item you want/need to edit for your custom title bar
</style>
</resources>
This allows you to have a theme that is applyable to your whole app. To do this you need to go to your AndroidManifest.xml file an inside the application tag add the following:
<application android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#style/MyTheme">
The android:theme tells the app to use the theme named "MyTheme" that can be found in the res/values/styles.xml file in your project.
That way you can apply correctly your custom title bar to all your activities.
Hope this answers your question if not, please specify!
An additional recommendation is to take a look at the ActionBarCompat project that comes with the samples in Android SDKs. The Android Developers page shows the project:
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ActionBarCompat/index.html
It has the advantage of being compatible with pre-API11 devices, is applied as a theme to your app and it is being used by lots of apps available in the store.
If you have any questions/trouble with it please tell me.
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>
I am putting a CheckBox against a white background. It looks fine on pre-Honeycomb devices but on Honeycomb, it seems that the graphic has partial transparency and is white, so when the checkbox is unticked, you cannot see it.
I tried using the Theme.Holo.Light style as follows:
<CheckBox android:text="" style="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light"
android:layout_marginLeft="5dip" android:id="#+id/checkBoxWifiOnly"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
This appears to have no effect. Am I typing the syntax wrongly?
You are applying the theme in a wrong way. Either apply #android:style/Theme.Holo.Light to the whole app/activity in the AndroidManifest.xml, or use #android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.CompoundButton.CheckBox as the style of your CheckBox. Also note that the "Holo" theme is available only on Honeycomb and higher.
I think that you'll have to apply the theme to the whole app, if you want the checkbox to have a different background. The thing is, that Widget.Holo.Light.CompoundButton.CheckBox and Widget.Holo.CompoundButton.CheckBox are the same and both extend the Widget.CompoundButton.CheckBox style, which has the "button" variable set by the theme attribute listChoiceIndicatorMultiple. This attribute's value is, in fact, different for light and dark theme.
I'd suggest you to create your own theme in values/themes.xml file, like this:
<style name="Theme.MyAwesomeApp" parent="#android:style/Theme.Light">
...
</style>
and in values-v11/themes.xml, like this:
<style name="Theme.MyAwesomeApp" parent="#android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
...
</style>
and then set it in your AndroidManifest.xml, like this:
<application android:theme="#style/Theme.MyAwesomeApp" ... >
...
</application>
Maybe you should also read how the themes and styles work: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/themes.html