Tutorial: UI Themes

darolla · by **darolla** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:33 am

Hi,

Did you know that there are some ui themes inside Android?

They are pretty easy to use, although they don't look very nice.

All you have to do is add one attribute in the manifest:

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android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Black"
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android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Light"
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android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent"
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Your manifest will look like this:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 
        package="org.theme" android:versionCode="1" android:versionName="1.0.0">
 
        <application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">
 
                <activity android:name=".Test" android:label="@string/app_name"
 
                        android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Light">
 
                        <intent-filter>
 
                                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
 
                                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
 
                        </intent-filter>
 
                </activity>
 
        </application>
 
</manifest> 
 
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I will attach four screenshots using the three different themes and one without a theme. They are based on the
making own theme layout from pskink.

Greetings,
DaRolla

The Spirit · by **The Spirit** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:36 am

is "without theme" the same as the "black theme"?

darolla · by **darolla** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:38 am

hi,

it seems that android is using black theme in case nothing else is specified

greetings,
darolla

agnimitra · by **agnimitra** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:02 am

thanks for the tutorial..
can we change the background to any custom color???

pskink · by **pskink** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:10 pm

darolla,

you could also add your modified 'Green Theme' - but with better check/radio buttons (i dont say yours are ugly, but imho dont match rest of the graphics) - maybe you could ask someone with photoshop experience and good aesthetic/graphics feelings - feel free to change mine stuff if its not enough/ugly etc.

darolla · by **darolla** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:04 pm

To be honest, I dont have contacts to painters, and I don't have the time due to finishing my computer science studies...

So if anyone is interested, please pm me...

Greetings,
DaRolla

pskink · by **pskink** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:39 pm

darolla wrote:and I don't have the time due to finishing my computer science studies...

duties first, pleasure later on, i completely understand :)

MrSnowflake · by **MrSnowflake** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 2:43 pm

The Spirit wrote:is "without theme" the same as the "black theme"?

I seems to me that black team is darker (blacker hehe) as the default theme.

ananddr · by **ananddr** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:30 pm

[font=Verdana]Hi DaRolla ,

I am getting the following error when i tried the tutorial.
Something is missing some where....
Since i am a novice to java and xml
I am not able to rectify the error....

Can you help me in this ?????

Regards,
Anand.[/font]

mattq · by **mattq** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 11:18 pm

I posted an in-depth tutorial about customizable UI themes in Android here: http://www.androidengineer.com/2010/06/ ... tions.html.

-Matt

pemko · by **pemko** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:16 pm

how can I make a custom button? i have edited your button but the button is very ugly and stretched too much

limteckchai · by **limteckchai** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:05 am

I would really hope if any can tell me if it is possible to both implement THEME.NO_TITLEBAR and THEME.LIGHT both at the same time.

And if it is... please show how ..

Your contribution to the android society is greatly appreciated.

bogdan71 · by **bogdan71** » Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:15 pm

To create both Light and No Title you can add this to the AndroidManifest.xml

<activity android:name=".SampleActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Light.NoTitleBar">

Easy enough if you look at the android source code....

vovs · by **vovs** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:04 pm

when I switch my Activity to use the Theme.Light, it doesn't show the text of the elements.
Here description and screenshot: view-layout-resource-problems-f27/how-to-change-text-color-of-android-s-preferences-t50983.html

Can you help me in this ?

ketankantilal · by **ketankantilal** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:48 am

Hello darolla,

My question is how did you apply light green theme? Can I change theme using java code? Your help needed.

Thanks,
Ketan

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