android TextView: setting the background color dynamically doesn't work

Question

Setting the background color programatically of an android TextView doesn't seem to work. I'm I missing something!

TextView et = new TextView(activity);
et.setText("350");
et.setBackgroundColor(R.color.white);

I also have this file (colors.xml) in my res/values folder

<resources>
        <color name="white">#ffffffff</color>
        <color name="black">#ff000000</color>
</resources>

[EDIT]: Also, setting the text color causes the TextView to disappear.

TextView c1 = new TextView(activity);
c1.setTextColor(R.color.solid_red);
c1.setText("My Text");

score 363 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 03 '19 at 11:54

363

Use et.setBackgroundResource(R.color.white);

edited Jan 03 '19 at 11:54

AskNilesh

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answered Sep 23 '09 at 16:33

bhatt4982

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6

The android API is really something, why couldn't it throw an error? – Tawani Sep 23 '09 at 17:05
54

Because it is not an error. setBackgroundColor() takes a color in numeric form (e.g., 0xFFFF0000 for red). R.color.white is also a number. – CommonsWare Sep 23 '09 at 17:15
6

D'oh! This definitely could have been done better with enums rather than ubiquitous ints. Thanks for the answer. – Wojciech Górski Sep 02 '12 at 15:21
2

They *could* be using different type signatures! One called ColorId and another called HexColor or something. Both are integers but they aren't the same *type* – Oct 13 '12 at 19:27
1

Very strange. From documentation: The resource should refer to a **Drawable** object or 0 to remove the background. – Artem Oct 02 '15 at 14:40

score 77 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '10 at 21:10

77

Try this:

TextView c1 = new TextView(activity);
c1.setTextColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.solid_red));
c1.setText("My Text");

I agree that a color and a resource have the same type, but I also spend a few hours to find this solution.

answered Jan 21 '10 at 21:10

Seb DA ROCHA

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2

I don't fully understand it right now (looking over api doc's) but it does work, so thank you! – CodeJustin.com Apr 23 '10 at 05:17
Thanks, you have saved me a few hours! Now that I know the solution, it makes sense to me but I'm sure it would have taken me a few hours to figure this out on my own. – FreewheelNat Dec 15 '10 at 10:11
Thanks. Android API is really non-intuitive at times. – suDocker Mar 28 '11 at 12:49

score 66 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 18 '11 at 09:43

66

To set red color:

textView.setBackgroundColor(0xfff00000);

Or

<color name="solid_red">#fff00000</color>

textView.setBackgroundResource(R.color.solid_red);

answered Mar 18 '11 at 09:43

Dmitry

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2

To echo badMonkey's answer given this is the more popular answer, you MUST set the high order bits to non zero for the transparency. I get caught all the time by specifying the RGB without the A. To set the background to pure blue, use 0xff0000ff, not 0x0000ff or it won't work. – JohnnyLambada Jul 03 '13 at 00:57
In the .xml the value of a element works with only the classic 6 digits: #FF0000 – Ed_ Jul 25 '14 at 17:32
@WeaponX: it works fine with transparent colors (in 8 digits). – CoolMind Jan 19 '16 at 15:32
@Weapn X The function takes an integer, 4 bytes. 6 hex digits is 3 bytes. – Sep 26 '19 at 15:32

score 20 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:59

20

I had a similar issue where I was creating a numeric color without considering the leading alpha channel. ie. mytext.setTextColor(0xFF0000) (thinking this would be red ). While this is a red color it is also 100% transparent as it = 0x00FF0000; The correct 100% opaque value is 0xFFFF0000 or mytext.setTextcolor(0xFFFF0000).

edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:59

duggu

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answered Mar 18 '11 at 12:45

badMonkey

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score 13 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 04 '14 at 11:06

13

Just this 1 line of code changed the background programmatically

tv.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#808080"));

answered Aug 04 '14 at 11:06

Vivek Warde

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score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 09 '13 at 14:27

Well I had situation when web service returned a color in hex format like "#CC2233" and I wanted to put this color on textView by using setBackGroundColor(), so I used android Color class to get int value of hex string and passed it to mentioned function. Everything worked. This is example:

String myHexColor = "#CC2233";
TextView myView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.myTextView);
myView.setBackGroundColor(Color.pasrsehexString(myHexColor));

P.S. posted this answer because other solutions didn't work for me. I hope this will help someone:)

dharmx · Answer 7 · 2017-12-19T17:47:53.307

here is in little detail,

if you are in activity use this

textview.setBackground(ContextCompat.getColor(this,R.color.yourcolor));

if you are in fragment use below code

textview.setBackground(ContextCompat.getColor(getActivity(),R.color.yourcolor));

if you are in recyclerview adapter use below code

textview.setBackground(ContextCompat.getColor(context,R.color.yourcolor));

// use holder.textview if you are in onBindviewholder
//here context is passed from fragment

score 4 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:58

4

tv.setTextColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.solid_red));

edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:58

duggu

37,851
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answered Jun 10 '13 at 05:46

Yash Patil

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score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 09 '15 at 12:08

Here are the steps to do it correctly:

First of all, declare an instance of TextView in your MainActivity.java as follows:
```
TextView mTextView;
```
Set some text DYNAMICALLY(if you want) as follows:
```
mTextView.setText("some_text");
```
Now, to set the background color, you need to define your own color in the res->values->colors.xml file as follows:
```
<resources>
    <color name="my_color">#000000</color>
</resources>
```
You can now use "my_color" color in your java file to set the background dynamically as follows:
```
mTextView.setBackgroundResource(R.color.my_color);
```

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 09 '13 at 07:12

3

Color.parseHexColor("17ee27") did not work for me, instead Color.parseColor("17ee27") worked perfectly.

answered Apr 09 '13 at 07:12

Siddharth

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16
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score 3 · Answer 11 · answered May 31 '13 at 04:51

two ways to do that:

1.create color in colors.xml file like:

<resources>
        <color name="white">#ffffff</color>
</resources>

and use it int activity java class as:

et.setBackgroundResource(R.color.white);

2.

et.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.white));
                or
et.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#ffffff"));

score 2 · Answer 12 · edited Mar 05 '20 at 11:05

2

If you would like to support all versions: Try this:

myTextView.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(this,R.color.mycolor));

edited Mar 05 '20 at 11:05

Kabir

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answered Apr 26 '17 at 08:57

Mladen Rakonjac

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score 1 · Answer 13 · edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:58

1

Jut use

ArrayAdapter<String> adaptername = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
            android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, your array list);

edited Jun 10 '15 at 14:58

duggu

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answered Oct 13 '12 at 21:10

Pavan Anadkat

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score 0 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 04:53

0

For setting colors from resource follow this:

textView.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.ButtonColorRed));

Here ButtonColorRed is color name in color resource

edited Jun 07 '21 at 04:53

Pranav Karnik

3,318
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answered Mar 16 '21 at 10:18

AmazingAshu

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1
6

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 21 '21 at 16:57

0

If you try the above solutions and it still doesn't work, have a look at your TextView xml and make sure that you remove android:background (cuz it may overlap your et.setBackGroundColor(R.color.yourcolor)

answered Sep 21 '21 at 16:57

Trang Nguyen

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1
2

score -11 · Answer 16 · edited Apr 05 '12 at 14:36

-11

you can use android:textColor= " whatever text color u want to give" in xml file where your text view is declared.

edited Apr 05 '12 at 14:36

Andro Selva

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answered Feb 17 '10 at 12:29

Richa

1

Programatically... not xml – aLL Aug 13 '19 at 10:25

android TextView: setting the background color dynamically doesn't work

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