How do I style appcompat-v7 Toolbar like Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar?

Question

I\'m trying to recreate the look of Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar with the new support library Toolbar.

If I choose Theme.AppCompat.Light

Answer 1

Ok after having sunk way to much time into this problem this is the way I managed to get the appearance I was hoping for. I'm making it a separate answer so I can get everything in one place.

It's a combination of factors.

Firstly, don't try to get the toolbars to play nice through just themes. It seems to be impossible.

So apply themes explicitly to your Toolbars like in oRRs answer

layout/toolbar.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
    app:theme="@style/Dark.Overlay"
    app:popupTheme="@style/Dark.Overlay.LightPopup" />

However this is the magic sauce. In order to actually get the background colors I was hoping for you have to override the background attribute in your Toolbar themes

values/styles.xml:

<!-- 
    I expected android:colorBackground to be what I was looking for but
    it seems you have to override android:background
-->
<style name="Dark.Overlay" parent="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
    <item name="android:background">?attr/colorPrimary</item>
</style>

<style name="Dark.Overlay.LightPopup" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="android:background">@color/material_grey_200</item>
</style>

then just include your toolbar layout in your other layouts

<include android:id="@+id/mytoolbar" layout="@layout/toolbar" />

and you're good to go.

Hope this helps someone else so you don't have to spend as much time on this as I have.

(if anyone can figure out how to make this work using just themes, ie not having to apply the themes explicitly in the layout files I'll gladly support their answer instead)

EDIT:

So apparently posting a more complete answer was a downvote magnet so I'll just accept the imcomplete answer above but leave this answer here in case someone actually needs it. Feel free to keep downvoting if it makes you happy though.

Answer 2

The recommended way to style the Toolbar for a Light.DarkActionBar clone would be to use Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionbar as parent/app theme and add the following attributes to the style to hide the default ActionBar:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
</style>

Then use the following as your Toolbar:

<android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
        app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light" />
</android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

For further modifications, you would create styles extending ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar and ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light replacing the ones within AppBarLayout->android:theme and Toolbar->app:popupTheme. Also note that this will pick up your ?attr/colorPrimary if you have set it in your main style so you might get a different background color.

You will find a good example of this is in the current project template with an Empty Activity of Android Studio (1.4+).

Answer 3

To customize tool bar style, first create tool bar custom style inheriting Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar, override properties and then add it to custom app theme as shown below, see http://www.zoftino.com/android-toolbar-tutorial for more information tool bar and styles.

   <style name="MyAppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
        <item name="toolbarStyle">@style/MyToolBarStyle</item>
    </style>
    <style name="MyToolBarStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar">
        <item name="android:background">#80deea</item>
        <item name="titleTextAppearance">@style/MyTitleTextAppearance</item>
        <item name="subtitleTextAppearance">@style/MySubTitleTextAppearance</item>
    </style>
    <style name="MyTitleTextAppearance" parent="TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Title">
        <item name="android:textSize">35dp</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#ff3d00</item>
    </style>
    <style name="MySubTitleTextAppearance" parent="TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Subtitle">
        <item name="android:textSize">30dp</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#1976d2</item>
    </style>

Answer 4

Similar to Arnav Rao's, but with a different parent:

    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>

    <item name="toolbarStyle">@style/MyToolbar</item>
</style>

<style name="MyToolbar" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
    <item name="android:background">#ff0000</item>
</style>

With this approach, the appearance of the Toolbar is entirely defined in the app styles, so you don't need to place any styling on each toolbar.

Answer 5

Edit: After updating to appcompat-v7:22.1.1 and using AppCompatActivity instead of ActionBarActivity my styles.xml looks like:

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <item name="theme">@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar</item>
</style>

Note: This means I am using a Toolbar provided by the framework (NOT included in an XML file).

This worked for me:
styles.xml file:

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="theme">@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar</item>
</style>

Update: A quote from Gabriele Mariotti's blog.

With the new Toolbar you can apply a style and a theme. They are different! The style is local to the Toolbar view, for example the background color. The app:theme is instead global to all ui elements inflated in the Toolbar, for example the color of the title and icons.

Answer 6

Yout can try this below.

<style name="MyToolbar" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar">
    <!-- your code here -->
</style>

And the detail elements you can find them in https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/appcompat/R.styleable.html#Toolbar

Here are some more:TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Title, TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Subtitle, Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Button.Navigation.

Hope this can help you.