Develop Reference

Change the color of the icon vs make icons in many color

I am confused between changing the color of the icon at run time using:
Drawable x = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.ic_action_xx);
x.setColorFilter(Color.parseColor("#000000"), PorterDuff.Mode.SRC_ATOP);
or creating many icons files in each color that I need !
Any help ! THANK YOU

It depends on an amount of pictures. I would create images for each if there are only a few colors (White and Black for example). But for hundreds of colors, I think it's better to use a filter.
Actually, if you app support only SDK version > lollipop
you can you use tint parameter in xml.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bitmap
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:src="#drawable/ic_back"
android:tint="#color/red_tint"/>

Install MaterialDesignIconGeneratorPlugin following this link
https://github.com/konifar/android-material-design-icon-generator-plugin

Change Android EditText background color

I am developing an Android app. There's this issue with the EditTexts, because in some devices the "background" is white (which is the way I want it), but on others is transparent, and makes the app less professional. Here's an image with the "white background":
On other devices the edit texts that say "Yo" and "Casa" are transparent, so the words mix with the map and its pretty awful. I have tried changing the background color in the android layout xml. The closest one was I believe #drawable/white, but slightly changes the position and size of the edit text, making them look like they're one and its even worst.
Here is an example:
Is there a nice way to approach this problem? I read somewhere that an option was to add a white background image to the edit texts, but seemed like a lot of trouble.
UPDATE
I tried adding a background image, but its the same as changing the background color to any color using the android:background, the edit texts get like smaller or something. I added a blue "delimiter" to the image and this is the result:
But I want them like in the first picture, not so close one to another.
This would be the code of the edittext layout XML, the other one looks very similar. Only by adding the android:background tag changes from picture 1, to picture 3
SOLUTION
To solve this what I did was set a background image and set its height in dp as follows:
<EditText
android:id="#+id/markerTitle"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="40dp"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/buttonModifymarker"
android:ems="10"
android:inputType="textPersonName"
android:text="Título"
android:background="#drawable/editwhite"
>

Why don't you try setting the background of EditText programmatically?
yourEditText.setBackgroundColor(Color.WHITE);
or...
yourEditText.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#ffffff"));

simply you can add android:background="#drawable/white" attribute to your element in layout xml. you can use a lot of color resource between the double quotes (like from android color resources).

put the following image which has a solid white background in the drawable folder (it may dont appear because it's white and this page's background is white also) right click under this paragraph and select "Save Image as".
and refer to it in your layout and you will get a result like the following image
if the issue continue after trying this, please show me your layout code or email me at : mohamed_hamed4158#yahoo.com , thanks for voting my answer :)

How to change the shape of an onClick highlight?

I currently have icons in a GridView on my app. When they are clicked, an orange square appears around them briefly as a highlight. The only problem is that I think this looks amateurish and would like to change the shape so that it clips the icon in the GridView instead of a large square. If you are unsure as to what I mean, it is carried out successfully in the Catch Notes app, on their dashboard/home screen. I was just wondering whether anybody knew a way to tackle this or if it is simply a small layout attribute.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.threebanana.notes&hl=en
Thanks in advance, all help would be appreciated!
It looks effectively like this EditText in the image below. The way that it borders the EditText in orange is exactly how it borders the icons in the home screen when clicked.

First, in your layout file, specify a drawable background:
android:background="#drawable/bg_your_view"
Then edit the bg_your_view file which is in drawable:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item android:drawable="#drawable/bg_your_view_pressed" android:state_pressed="true"></item>
<item android:drawable="#drawable/bg_your_view_normal" android:state_focused="false"></item>
</selector>
At last, create corresponding drawable files for pressed and normal states:
bg_your_view_pressed.xml contains the shape, the color you want for highlight.
bg_your_view_normal.xml is similar, just without highlight effect.

I've decided that the easiest way to solve this problem is to simply reference another image when the image on the GridView has been clicked. This means that the second image can just be edited in Photoshop in order to have a glow around it.

ImageButton background swiching on it's own? Drawables gone wild?

I having an issue where the ImageButton background is being drawn with a different drawable from one of my resources. I'm setting the background to be transparent but on some cases it's picking up one of my drawables called bottom_shadow.9.png. Why why!? It's freaking weird...
I've seen this issue before... Some of my app users have complained seeing this issue and now I'm determined to figure this out! Take a look below what I currently have. Any tips or ideas would help.
The color value I created under values/colors.xml:
<color name="transparent">#00000000</color>
My ImageButton under my one xml layout under layout/:
<ImageButton
android:id="#+id/ibHelp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="#dimen/settings_list_item_height"
android:background="#color/transparent"
android:contentDescription="#string/content_desc_more_information"
android:paddingLeft="10dp"
android:paddingRight="10dp"
android:scaleType="centerInside"
android:src="#drawable/btn_help" />
This is what I'm seeing on the generated R.java file:
public static final class drawable {
public static final int bottom_shadow=0x7f020000;
}
public static final class color {
public static final int transparent=0x7f080009;
}
This is what it should look like:
This is what I'm seeing:

Could it be related to this issue?
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=20283

I think you are facing the same issue as I on another project : When using the transparent color #00000000 on a background, Android will not actually make it transparent but instead use the background drawable of the element directly under it.
Not sure what I've just said is clear but to check if this is it, I found a quick and easy solutions : Don't use #00000000 as your background transparent but any other completely transparent color : #00FF0000 or even #00F00000 should do it.
See the issue I raised in Google tracker : http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24653

Why are you creating your own color when it's built into Android.R.color? I would try using:
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
Whether or not it fixes your problem, it's simpler and cleaner.

I think you wanna your button's background to be some kind of color, but you have assigned both a src and a color of the button(in the layout xml), which means that the button may use the src picture as the background, not a pure color. I don't know if I made the point.

Just to add to this, I was seeing really strange periodic display corruption in my transparent ImageButton background because I was specifying the items in my background selector as follows:
<item android:drawable="#android:color/transparent" android:state_focused="false" android:state_pressed="false" android:state_selected="true"/>
This might seem to work occasionally, but I definitely had cases where the ImageButtons would render with a ghastly all-white background instead of the nice transparent background.
Note that I was mixing up the android:drawable syntax with a color resource. The correct way to specify a color resource seems to be either an android:color="#FF00FF" attribute or as a child element of item using a element. I searched long and hard, and eventually found this post.

How do I set the background to a solid color? When I use setContentView the screen is blank

I have looked and tried a lot of different things but no matter what I end up doing the screen is always blank and I'm sure it's something really dumb I'm doing and I'm hoping someone will catch it.
I'm trying to alternate background colors but before I even get to that I need to get it so that even one background color will display properly.
First, my xml layout works fine and when I got to the layout view it displays the color just as I want it to. When I go to setContentView() in the activity that calls the xml it is never displayed and I only get a blank screen.
Second, since this initial issue described above I have tried several fixes and have numbered them accordingly. As I did a fix I usually only bothered to comment it out instead of deleting it after it didn't work. After certain lines there is a number, so if three lines have 1's behind them then those were the three lines used in attempt #1.
Third, while trying these fixes I added a colors xml file while I'll display as well.
Finally, I'll show my main activity first, xml file second, and colors file last. As you can see my ultimate goal would be to change the background dynamically but I can't even to get it to work normally right now. And FYI my splash screen works fine. But that's an image.
Thanks for you help.
public class Blink extends Activity {
long startTime= System.currentTimeMillis();
long now=0;//the current time in millis
public void OnCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
//TextView backgroundColor=new TextView(this);2,3,4,5,6
//backgroundColor.setBackgroundColor(0xFFFF0000);5
//backgroundColor.setBackgroundResource(R.color.royalBlue);2,3,4
//backgroundColor.setVisibility(0);//make visible 3
setContentView(R.layout.blank);1
//setContentView(backgroundColor);4,5,6
//backgroundColor.setBackgroundColor(Color.argb(255, 255, 255, 255));6
//setContentView(R.layout.blink_blue);
//blink from royal blue to blank
/*while(true){
startTime= System.currentTimeMillis();
do{
now=System.currentTimeMillis();
setContentView(R.layout.blink_blue);
}while((-(startTime-now))>1000);
do{
now=System.currentTimeMillis();
setContentView(R.layout.blank);
}while((-(startTime-now))>1000);
}*/
}
This begins the xml file
//it is formatted properly but for some reason stack overflow doesn't like it so I'm only posting relevant lines.
//This is a Linear layout
android:id="#+id/blinkBlue"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:background="#color/royalBlue"
This begins the colors file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<color name="royalBlue">#4169e1</color>//Yes I have tried #FF4169e1 instead
<color name="plainBlue">#ff000000</color>
<color name="darkBlue">#ff000000</color>
<color name="black">#00000000</color>
<!-- I also know that the blues here aren't those colors... I'll change that when I fix this thing. -->
</resources>

You don't set colors that way, You specify colors of your Layouts that are defined in your XMLs and then you setContentView() to that XML file.
For example, lets pretend that your XML file has the name as my_layout.xml, then you have specified the color in my_color.xml so you go this way:
You write a layout in my_layout.xml
Now you write a resource XML for color as you have written above, and save it in the /res/values/my_color.xml
Set the layout (defined in my_layout.xml) background to be `android:background="#color/my_color"
in your code, use setContentView(R.layout.my_layout)
This will make my_layout.xml to be your content's layout and further the background color thing will be handled by the layout inside my_layout.xml file.
I hope that helps.

Take a look at using a state list drawable as a background. Each item can point to a shape drawable that specifies a different background color. Alternatively, use a shape drawable as a background that points to a color state list as the solid color.
If the built-in attributes available for defining a state list drawable or a color state list are not right for your application, you can use the technique shown in this thread to define your own.