Android - Change Actionbar Title Text Color

Question

I'm developing an app and I want to change the textcolor of the actionbar title. now, I defined a theme in my manifest:

<application
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
</application>

which is defined in styles.xml:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
        <item name="android:textViewStyle">@style/AppTheme.TextView</item>
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/AppTheme.ActionBarStyle</item>
    </style>

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

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

    <style name="AppTheme.TextView" parent="@android:style/Widget.TextView">
        <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
    </style>

this doesn't work but I don't get why. this should work according to this answer.neither the textview style is working.

what I am doing wrong?

UPDATE: changed to meet Grace Feng answer below

Solution 1

wandering around StackOverflow I found this answer which finally worked.

I report it here:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/ActionBar</item>
    ...
</style>

<style name="ActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.ActionBar">
  <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/ActionBar.Title</item>
  <item name="android:subtitleTextStyle">@style/ActionBar.Subtitle</item>
  ...
</style>

<style name="ActionBar.Title">
  <item name="android:textColor">@color/my_color</item>
</style>

<style name="ActionBar.Subtitle">
  <item name="android:textColor">@color/my_color</item>
</style>

Solution 2

Using SpannableString we can set Text Color of Actionbar title

SpannableString s = new SpannableString(title);
s.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN), 0, title.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
getSupportActionBar().setTitle(s);

Solution 3

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">

<style name="AppTheme.TextView" parent="android:Widget.TextView">

You missed a symbol "@" here?

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

also

<style name="AppTheme.TextView" parent="@android:Widget.TextView">

Solution 4

You could find how to customize ActionBar here. I recommend to use ToolBar and Theme.AppCompat instead - example.

Solution 5

I am assuming you are using ToolBar as ActionBar. Of all the answers, I think this is the easiest one to implement. And works on all API versions.

So here it is:

Action bar title uses textColorPrimary as its text color. So to change that in styles.xml create a new style with an item for textColorPrimary and set whatever color you need.

<style name="appBarTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
    <item name="android:textColorPrimary">@color/colorRed</item>
</style>

Now, add that style as your theme for toolbar in the XML.

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:layout_scrollFlags="enterAlways"
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    android:theme="@style/appBarTheme">
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

And now you got what you need.

View more solutions

Comments

[jack_the_beast]

oh, this is embarassing. anyway, this is not working anyway, actionbar title remains white and textviews reamains black

[jack_the_beast]

I have a NavigationDrawer in the activity, so it extends AbstractNavDrawerActivity. unfortunately I didn't write this code so I don't really know why the guy who written this used it this way :S

[sunday]

I see AbstractNavDrawerActivity and this activity is extended from ActionBarActivity. And your theme is form Theme.Holo . So it will not work. If you do not want to change the activity , just change the theme like stackoverflow.com/questions/29957822/…. it will work

[jack_the_beast]

if I put this like you suggested android studio is not able to find it and returns an error, all the suggestion include :style

[jack_the_beast]

I did. I understend I should not use it for the application tab but rather for sigle views. But then my questio remains, how do I change the text color?

[James]

I followed this example setting @color/my_color to #000000, and my text inside the action bar is still white.

[Mohammed]

Both the actionBar background and text colors became white.

[JorgeAmVF]

android:textColorPrimary is very precise. I had to look at a lot of answers till I reached this and it worked. Thanks!