Android appcompat theme always shows black color actionbar
android, android-actionbar, android-appcompat
Solution
With AppCompat v21 the actionbarstylegenerator is deprecated.
You can use something like this to customize the ActionBar (or better the Toolbar).
<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
<!-- Set AppCompat's color theming attrs -->
<item name="colorPrimary">@color/my_color</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/my_darkercolor</item>
</style>
You can find more info in the official blog: http://android-developers.blogspot.it/2014/10/appcompat-v21-material-design-for-pre.html
Problem
I generated actionbar style using this web based tool which is very common http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/ I've 'android-support-v7-appcompat' as an individual project in my workspace. I dumped all the contents of the res folder generated by downloading the zip file from this tool into this project. I used a dark blue kinda color for the action bar and context menu (pop up). However, I'm not able to achieve the custom look from this theme. Most of the elements / components show a default look. The actionbar is black (instead of blue) and the pop menu is grey (instead of light blue) My style.xml from the value folder ``` <style name="Theme.dinemobileandro" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar"> <item name="actionBarItemBackground">@drawable/selectable_background_dinemobileandro</item> <item name="popupMenuStyle">@style/PopupMenu.dinemobileandro</item> <item name="dropDownListViewStyle">@style/DropDownListView.dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionBarTabStyle">@style/ActionBarTabStyle.dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionDropDownStyle">@style/DropDownNav.dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/ActionBar.Solid.dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionModeBackground">@drawable/cab_background_top_dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionModeSplitBackground">@drawable/cab_background_bottom_dinemobileandro</item> <item name="actionModeCloseButtonStyle">@style/ActionButton.CloseMode.dinemobileandro</item> <!-- Light.DarkActionBar specific --> <item name="actionBarWidgetTheme">@style/Theme.dinemobileandro.Widget</item> </style> ``` I've made the necessary changes in my manifest file as well ``` <application android:name="com.railyatri.in.mobile.MainApplication" android:allowBackup="true" android:allowClearUserData="true" android:enabled="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@style/Theme.dinemobileandro" > ``` I've followed the steps mentioned in this blog closely and it worked for me previously for a sherlock theme. http://java.dzone.com/articles/creating-custom-android-styles However, this time, I migrated to appcompat and it stopped working. I've searched through SO and Google a lot and tried a couple of things suggested but all in vain. Please help. Thanks in advance.