Change Background color of the action bar using AppCompat

android, android-actionbar, xml

Solution

<style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:background"  tools:ignore="NewApi">@color/red</item>
    <item name="background">@color/red</item>
</style>

<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle"   tools:ignore="NewApi">@style/MyActionBar</item>
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>

</style>

you need both `android:background` and `background` items. The former is for newer versions of android that support ActionBar natively. The latter is for older android versions.

EDIT

instead of `<resources>` use

<resources xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

From SDK 21

to change Action Bar background color, add this to ActionBarTheme, and the two colours are to be different or it will not work (thanks to `@Dre` and `@lagoman`)

<item name="colorPrimary">@color/my_awesome_red</item> 
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/my_awesome_darker_red</item>

Problem

I found some questions about this problem around the web. Unfortunately, everything i try so far, has been unsuccessful. Has the title say, i need to change the background color of my action bar. The project have a min sdk of 9, and max sdk of 19. I have create in my res/values folder, an xml file: red_actionbar.xml ``` <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <resources> <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light"> <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item> </style> <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse"> <item name="background">@color/red</item> </style> </resources> ``` the colors.xml stored in res/values ``` <resources> <color name="red">#FF0000</color> </resources> ``` and the part of the manifest where i change the theme ``` <application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@style/CustomActionBarTheme" > ``` But nothing changes. Where is the problem? The application accepts the code because if i change ths: ``` <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light"> ``` to ``` <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar "> ``` it does change the theme of my app, so the problem is in the style but I don't know how to solve it. ``` <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <resources> <style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light"> <item name="android:actionBarStyle" tools:ignore="NewApi">@style/MyActionBar</item> <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item> </style> <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse"> <item name="android:background" tools:ignore="NewApi">@color/red</item> <item name="background">@color/red</item> </style> </resources> ```

Original source