How to programmatically set style attribute in a view

Question

I\'m getting a view from the XML with the code below:

Button view = (Button) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.section_button, null);

Answer 1

For anyone looking for a Material answer see this SO post: Coloring Buttons in Android with Material Design and AppCompat

I used a combination of this answer to set the default text color of the button to white for my button: https://stackoverflow.com/a/32238489/3075340

Then this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/34355919/3075340 to programmatically set the background color. The code for that is:

ViewCompat.setBackgroundTintList(your_colored_button,
 ContextCompat.getColorStateList(getContext(),R.color.your_custom_color));

your_colored_button can be just a regular Button or a AppCompat button if you wish - I tested the above code with both types of buttons and it works.

EDIT: I found that pre-lollipop devices do not work with the above code. See this post on how to add support for pre-lollipop devices: https://stackoverflow.com/a/30277424/3075340

Basically do this:

Button b = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);
ColorStateList c = ContextCompat.getColorStateList(mContext, R.color.your_custom_color;
Drawable d = b.getBackground();
if (b instanceof AppCompatButton) {
    // appcompat button replaces tint of its drawable background
    ((AppCompatButton)b).setSupportBackgroundTintList(c);
} else if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
    // Lollipop button replaces tint of its drawable background
    // however it is not equal to d.setTintList(c)
    b.setBackgroundTintList(c);
} else {
    // this should only happen if 
    // * manually creating a Button instead of AppCompatButton
    // * LayoutInflater did not translate a Button to AppCompatButton
    d = DrawableCompat.wrap(d);
    DrawableCompat.setTintList(d, c);
    b.setBackgroundDrawable(d);
}

Answer 2

I made a helper interface for this using the holder pattern.

public interface StyleHolder<V extends View> {
    void applyStyle(V view);
}

Now for every style you want to use pragmatically just implement the interface, for example:

public class ButtonStyleHolder implements StyleHolder<Button> {

    private final Drawable background;
    private final ColorStateList textColor;
    private final int textSize;

    public ButtonStyleHolder(Context context) {
        TypedArray ta = context.obtainStyledAttributes(R.style.button, R.styleable.ButtonStyleHolder);

        Resources resources = context.getResources();

        background = ta.getDrawable(ta.getIndex(R.styleable.ButtonStyleHolder_android_background));

        textColor = ta.getColorStateList(ta.getIndex(R.styleable.ButtonStyleHolder_android_textColor));

        textSize = ta.getDimensionPixelSize(
                ta.getIndex(R.styleable.ButtonStyleHolder_android_textSize),
                resources.getDimensionPixelSize(R.dimen.standard_text_size)
        );

        // Don't forget to recycle!
        ta.recycle();
    }

    @Override
    public void applyStyle(Button btn) {
        btn.setBackground(background);
        btn.setTextColor(textColor);
        btn.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX, textSize);
    }
}

Declare a stylable in your attrs.xml, the styleable for this example is:

<declare-styleable name="ButtonStyleHolder">
    <attr name="android:background" />
    <attr name="android:textSize" />
    <attr name="android:textColor" />
</declare-styleable>

Here is the style declared in styles.xml:

<style name="button">
    <item name="android:background">@drawable/button</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/light_text_color</item>
    <item name="android:textSize">@dimen/standard_text_size</item>
</style>

And finally the implementation of the style holder:

Button btn = new Button(context);    
StyleHolder<Button> styleHolder = new ButtonStyleHolder(context);
styleHolder.applyStyle(btn);

I found this very helpful as it can be easily reused and keeps the code clean and verbose, i would recommend using this only as a local variable so we can allow the garbage collector to do its job once we're done with setting all the styles.

Answer 3

I faced the same problem recently. here is how i solved it.

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

    <!-- This is the special two colors background START , after this LinearLayout, you can add all view that have it for main background-->
    <LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"

    android:weightSum="2"

    android:background="#FFFFFF"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    >

    <View
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:background="#0000FF" />

    <View
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:background="#F000F0" />
    </LinearLayout>
    <!-- This is the special two colors background END-->

   <TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_centerInParent="true"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:text="This Text is centered with a special backgound,
    You can add as much elements as you want as child of this RelativeLayout"
    android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
    android:textSize="20sp" />
</RelativeLayout>

• I used a LinearLayout with android:weightSum="2"
• I gave to the two child elements android:layout_weight="1" (I gave each 50% of the parent space(width & height))
• And finally, i gave the two child element different background colors to have the final effect.

Thanks !

Answer 4

The answer by @Dayerman and @h_rules is right. To give an elaborated example with code, In drawable folder, create an xml file called button_disabled.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:shape="rectangle" android:padding="10dp">   
 <solid android:color="@color/silver"/>
<corners
   android:bottomRightRadius="20dp"
   android:bottomLeftRadius="20dp"
   android:topLeftRadius="20dp"
   android:topRightRadius="20dp"/>
</shape>

Then in Java,

((Button) findViewById(R.id.my_button)).setEnabled(false);
((Button) findViewById(R.id.my_button)).setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.button_disabled);

This will set the button's property to disabled and sets the color to silver.

[The color is defined in color.xml as:

<resources>

    <color name="silver">#C0C0C0</color>

</resources>

Answer 5

Depending on what style attributes you'd like to change you may be able to use the Paris library:

Button view = (Button) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.section_button, null);
Paris.style(view).apply(R.style.YourStyle);

Many attributes like background, padding, textSize, textColor, etc. are supported.

• List of currently supported attributes
• Installation instructions

Disclaimer: I authored the library.