Android Styles and Themes

In this guide, you will explore the Android styles and themes with examples and learn how they can help you design a consistent and appealing UI for your app.

As an Android developer, creating a visually appealing user interface (UI) is critical to the success of your app. However, ensuring consistency across the entire app can be challenging and time-consuming. This is where Android styles and themes come into play.

What are Android Styles and Themes?

In Android, a style is a collection of attributes that define the appearance and behavior of a UI element.

A theme, on the other hand, is a collection of styles that are applied to an entire app or a specific view hierarchy.

By using styles and themes, you can create a unified look and feel for your app, making it easier for users to navigate and interact with.

Android Styles

If you want to define the appearance of UI components in your Android app, styles can help you achieve that.

Styles are collections of attributes that you can apply to a View, ViewGroup, or an entire Activity.

They are made up of pre-defined attributes that determine how the components look.

You can define styles in XML or resource files, and they can be applied to Views and ViewGroups using the style attribute.

One great feature of styles is that they can inherit from each other, allowing you to create a hierarchy of styles and make it easier to manage the appearance of your app.

Here is an example of a simple style defined in XML:

<style name="MyStyle">
<item name="android:textColor">#00ff00</item>
<item name="android:textSize">24px</item>
</style>

In this example, the MyStyle style sets the text color to green and the text size to 24px. This style can be applied to a TextView like this:

<TextView
android:id="@+id/my_textview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Android Style!"
style="@style/MyStyle" />

Android Themes

An Android theme is a collection of styles applied to an entire activity or application.

An application theme is a set of predefined styles that give it a consistent appearance.

XML or resource files can be used to define themes.

The android:theme attribute in the manifest file can be used to apply them to an activity or application.

Below example illustrates the definition of theme in XML:

<resources>
<style name="MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<item name="android:colorPrimary">#3F51B5</item>
<item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">#303F9F</item>
<item name="android:textColor">#000000</item>
</style>
</resources>

This example shows that the MyTheme theme inherits the Theme.AppCompat.Light theme, with a primary color of blue, a primary dark color of a darker shade of blue, and a text color of black. An Activity using this theme would look like this:

<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:theme="@style/MyTheme" >
...
</activity>

All UI elements in an Activity will be styled according to the theme applied to it. As a result, the entire application will have a consistent look and feel.