Standard Android Button with a different color

Question

I\'d like to change the color of a standard Android button slightly in order to better match a client\'s branding.

The best way I\'ve found to do this so far is to c

Answer 1

There is a much easier way now : android-holo-colors.com

It will let you change the colors of all holo drawables (buttons, spinners, ...) easily. You select the color and then download a zip file containing drawables for all resolutions.

Answer 2

If you are making colour buttons with XML you can make the code a bit cleaner by specifying the focused and pressed state in a separate file and reuse them. My green button looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@drawable/button_focused"/>
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@drawable/button_pressed"/>

    <item>
        <shape>
            <gradient android:startColor="#ff00ff00" android:endColor="#bb00ff00" android:angle="270" />
            <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#bb00ff00" />
            <corners android:radius="3dp" />
            <padding android:left="10dp" android:top="10dp" android:right="10dp" android:bottom="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>

</selector>

Answer 3

I discovered that this can all be done in one file fairly easily. Put something like the following code in a file named custom_button.xml and then set background="@drawable/custom_button" in your button view:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <item android:state_pressed="true" >
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:startColor="@color/yellow1"
                android:endColor="@color/yellow2"
                android:angle="270" />
            <stroke
                android:width="3dp"
                android:color="@color/grey05" />
            <corners
                android:radius="3dp" />
            <padding
                android:left="10dp"
                android:top="10dp"
                android:right="10dp"
                android:bottom="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>

    <item android:state_focused="true" >
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:endColor="@color/orange4"
                android:startColor="@color/orange5"
                android:angle="270" />
            <stroke
                android:width="3dp"
                android:color="@color/grey05" />
            <corners
                android:radius="3dp" />
            <padding
                android:left="10dp"
                android:top="10dp"
                android:right="10dp"
                android:bottom="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>

    <item>        
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:endColor="@color/blue2"
                android:startColor="@color/blue25"
                android:angle="270" />
            <stroke
                android:width="3dp"
                android:color="@color/grey05" />
            <corners
                android:radius="3dp" />
            <padding
                android:left="10dp"
                android:top="10dp"
                android:right="10dp"
                android:bottom="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</selector>

Answer 4

The DroidUX component library has a ColorButton widget whose color can be changed easily, both via xml definition and programmatically at run time, so you can even let the user to set the button's color/theme if your app allows it.

Answer 5

values\styles.xml

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
</style>

<style name="RedAccentButton" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="colorAccent">#ff0000</item>
</style>

then:

<Button
    style="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="text" />

<Button
    style="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:enabled="false"
    android:text="text" />

<Button
    style="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="text"
    android:theme="@style/RedAccentButton" />

<Button
    style="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:enabled="false"
    android:text="text"
    android:theme="@style/RedAccentButton" />

Answer 6

You can now also use appcompat-v7's AppCompatButton with the backgroundTint attribute:

<android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatButton
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:backgroundTint="#ffaa00"/>