How to set custom ActionBar color / style?

Question

I am using Android Navigation bar in my project, I want to change the top color in action bar to something red, How can i do that? I have something like this,

and i want something like this,

how can i achieve that?

Answer 1

in the style.xml add this code

<resources>
    <style name="MyTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyAction</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:background">#333333</item>
    </style>
</resources>

Answer 2

For Android 3.0 and higher only

When supporting Android 3.0 and higher only, you can define the action bar's background like this:

res/values/themes.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
    <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
       <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
    </style>

<!-- ActionBar styles -->
  <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
       <item name="android:background">#ff0000</item>
  </style>
</resources>

For Android 2.1 and higher

When using the Support Library, your style XML file might look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <resources>
  <!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
 <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>

    <!-- Support library compatibility -->
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>

<!-- ActionBar styles -->
<style name="MyActionBar"
       parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>

    <!-- Support library compatibility -->
    <item name="background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
  </style>
 </resources>

Then apply your theme to your entire app or individual activities:

for more details Documentaion

Answer 3

As I was using AppCompatActivity above answers didn't worked for me. But the below solution worked:

In res/styles.xml

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

PS: I've used colorPrimary instead of android:colorPrimary

Answer 4

You can change action bar color on this way:

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

Thats all you need for changing action bar color.

Plus if you want to change the status bar color just add the line:

 <item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">@color/green_dark_action_bar</item>

Here is a screenshot taken from developer android site to make it more clear, and here is a link to read more about customizing the color palete

Answer 5

Use this - http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/

Good tool to customize your actionbar with a live preview in couple of minutes.

Answer 6

You can define the color of the ActionBar (and other stuff) by creating a custom Style:

Simply edit the res/values/styles.xml file of your Android project.

For example like this:

<resources>
    <style name="MyCustomTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBarTheme</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBarTheme" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:background">ANY_HEX_COLOR_CODE</item>
    </style>
</resources>

Then set "MyCustomTheme" as the Theme of your Activity that contains the ActionBar.

You can also set a color for the ActionBar like this:

ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.RED)); // set your desired color

Taken from here: How do I change the background color of the ActionBar of an ActionBarActivity using XML?