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 change the Button's drawable to the drawable located in res/drawable/red_button.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>    
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@drawable/red_button_pressed" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@drawable/red_button_focus" />
    <item android:drawable="@drawable/red_button_rest" />
</selector>

But doing that requires that I actually create three different drawables for each button I want to customize (one for the button at rest, one when focused, and one when pressed). That seems more complicated and non-DRY than I need.

All I really want to do is apply some sort of color transform to the button. Is there an easier way to go about changing a button's color than I'm doing?

Answer 1

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 2

You can set theme of your button to this

<style name="AppTheme.ButtonBlue" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
 <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/HEXColor</item>
 <item name="android:textColor">@color/HEXColor</item>
</style>

Answer 3

In <Button> use android:background="#33b5e5". or better android:background="@color/navig_button"

Answer 4

Mike, you might be interested in color filters.

An example:

button.getBackground().setColorFilter(new LightingColorFilter(0xFFFFFFFF, 0xFFAA0000));

try this to achieve the color you want.

Answer 5

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 6

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" />