Develop Reference

Android PreferenceFragment title text color

I'm using a AppCompatPreferenceActivity that uses a PreferenceActivity simplified UI for phones (no fragments), but a two-pane UI with PreferenceFragment when it's a tablet.
Until now, I used only a light theme (my theme's parent is Theme.AppCompat.Light) and no problem, it looks like this when in two-pane mode:
I'm now implementing a dark theme, so this time, my theme's parent is "Theme.AppCompat".
And it looks like this:
As you can see, the title of the preference fragment is black on a dark grey background. How can I set this "title" color?
Note: on Pre-Lollipop, it was easy, we would just have to att that to the preference activity theme:
<item name="android:textColorSecondary">#AAAAAA</item>
... but it doesn't work anymore on Lollipop and Marshmallow.
Any idea?

By checking the PreferenceActivity code, I eventually found that the title on the right pane is not part of the preference fragment, but is the fragment "breadcrumb".
By searching for an answer with this keyword ("breadcrumb"), I saw that someone already asked the same thing, and the accepted answer is great and details all about how to do it, and why it's a little more complicated than just changing a color in a style.
Here's the question: Changing the highlight and title color for fragments in PreferenceActivity
And the direct link to the answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/27078485/1534408

Did you try like this?
in styles.xml
<style name="PreferenceScreen" parent="YourApplicationThemeOrNone">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/TitleColor</item>
</style>
in Manifest
<activity
android:name="MyPreferenceActivity"
...
android:theme="#style/PreferenceScreen" >
</activity>

I changed it by overriding Category theme.
<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
//other stuff
<item name="preferenceTheme">#style/MyPrefTheme</item>
</style>
<style name="MyPrefTheme" parent="#style/PreferenceThemeOverlay">
<item name="preferenceCategoryStyle">#style/CategoryStyle</item>
<item name="android:preferenceCategoryStyle">#style/CategoryStyle</item>
</style>
<style name="CategoryStyle" parent="Preference.Category">
<item name="android:layout">#layout/category_view</item>
</style>
layout/category_view.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView android:id="#android:id/title"
style="?android:attr/listSeparatorTextViewStyle"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:textColor="#color/white"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
/>
to know more visit Preference style.xml

App crash when android:theme is aplied to a specific button

i am doing a simple calculator aplication for android (my first app) and i have problems that are breaking my head when i try to apply a specific android:theme to a button.
The problem comes out when the button with the specific theme try to execute an activity method in onclick event. Based on what I 've searched in StackOverflow, is like the "context" of the button with the specific theme is different from the activity context, and because of that it cant find my method that handles the onclick written in the activity.
There is my style.xml where i define my aplication theme and my specific button theme:
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#dc000000</item>
<item name="android:background">#dc262626</item>
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
</style>
<style name="contextButtonTheme" parent="AppTheme">
<item name="colorButtonNormal">#color/contextButtonsColor</item>
</style>
</resources>
There is my button in the layout xml:
<Button
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="25"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:text="X"
android:id="#+id/multButton"
android:textSize="11pt"
android:theme="#style/contextButtonTheme"
android:onClick="onClickButton"/>
The solution i read here is that change "android:theme" with "style", although this solves the crash, the colorButtonNormal new color is dont applied :(.
Pls help me D:
PD: Sorry for my bad english

I've answered a similar question here, where you can get a bit more background.
A possible solution to your problem is to not use android:onClick="onClickButton" but set an onClickListener in code. This way you can keep your themed Button. The official docs have an example how to do this.

Themes in android

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.

How to change the accent color on my Android app from blue to something else

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.

Holo light theme not setting on button

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.