ActionBar text color

Question

how can I change the text color of the ActionBar? I've inherited the Holo Light Theme, I'm able to change the background of the ActionBar but I don't find out what is the attribute to tweak to change the text color.

---

Ok, I'm able to change the text color with the attribute android:textColorPrimary but it also changes the text color of the dropdown menu displayed when an overflow happen on the ActionBar buttons. Any idea how to change the color of those dropdown menu / List ?

Answer 1

Setting a HTML string on the action bar doesn't work on the Material theme in SDK v21+

If you want to change it you should set the primary text color in your style.xml

<resources>
    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Material.Light">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="android:textColorPrimary">@color/actionbar-text-color</item>
    </style>
</resources>    

Answer 2

Ok, I've found a better way. I'm now able to only change the color of the title. You can also tweak the subtitle.

Here is my styles.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <style name="MyTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBarStyle</item>
  </style>

  <style name="MyTheme.ActionBarStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
    <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
  </style>

  <style name="MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/red</item>
  </style>
</resources>

Answer 3

This function works well

private void setActionbarTextColor(ActionBar actBar, int color) {

    String title = actBar.getTitle().toString();
    Spannable spannablerTitle = new SpannableString(title);
    spannablerTitle.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(color), 0, spannablerTitle.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    actBar.setTitle(spannablerTitle);

}

then to use it just feed it your action bar and the new color ie

ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();    // Or getSupportActionBar() if using appCompat
int red = Color.RED
setActionbarTextColor(actionBar, red);

Answer 4

Try adding this in your Activity's onCreate. Works on almost every Android version.

 actionBar.setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ffff00'>Your Title</font>"));  

or

getSupportActionBar().setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ffff00'>Your Title</font>"));

Answer 5

For Android 5 (lollipop) you will have to use android:actionBarPopupTheme to set the textColor for the overflow menu.

Answer 6

I was having the same problem as you, it's a Holo.Light theme but I wanted to style the ActionBar color, so I needed to change the text color as well and also both Title and Menus. So at the end I went to git hub and looked at source code until I find the damn correct style:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- For honeycomb and up -->
<resources>

    <style name="myTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/myTheme.ActionBar</item>
        <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/actionBarText</item>
    </style>

    <style name="myTheme.ActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:background">@drawable/actionbarbground</item>
        <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/myTheme.ActionBar.Text</item>
    </style>

    <style name="myTheme.ActionBar.Text" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/actionBarText</item>
    </style>

</resources>

so now all you have to do is set whatever @color/actionBarText and@drawable/actionbarbground you want!