How to set background color of a View

Question

I'm trying to set the background color of a View (in this case a Button).

I use this code:

// set the background to green
v.setBackgroundColor(0x0000FF00 );
v.invalidate();

It causes the Button to disappear from the screen. What am I doing wrong, and what is the correct way to change the background color on any View?

Thanks.

That looks correct. In fact, I don't think you need to call invalidate(). When you say the button disappears, do you mean that literally or do you mean the button had text or an image on it that disappears? — RickNotFred, Feb 01 '10 at 00:22

score 300 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 15 '14 at 00:57

300

You made your button transparent. The first byte is the alpha.

Try v.setBackgroundColor(0xFF00FF00);

edited Nov 15 '14 at 00:57

Jorgesys

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answered Sep 01 '11 at 23:05

rainhut

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EddieB's answer below is much better as this removes any borders etc. such as an EditText's underlining – Molten Ice Jul 27 '14 at 11:19
@aroth is better Color.Green ? If I want color complext with argb ? ... your answer is deprecated – Aug 03 '15 at 16:05
2

@delive - Come again? [Color.GREEN](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/Color.html#GREEN) is _not_ deprecated, and includes the alpha byte. It's value is `0xff00ff00`, _exactly_ the same as what's suggested in the answer, except it also has the benefit of being _human-readable_. Most developers would prefer a human-readable solution. – aroth Aug 03 '15 at 16:12
What do you write between the brackets when you want to refer to a color in your colors.xml? – Steven Sep 19 '21 at 08:40

score 153 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 14 '13 at 11:35

153

When you call setBackgoundColor it overwrites/removes any existing background resource, including any borders, corners, padding, etc. What you want to do is change the color of the existing background resource...

View v;
v.getBackground().setColorFilter(Color.parseColor("#00ff00"), PorterDuff.Mode.DARKEN);

Experiment with PorterDuff.Mode.* for different effects.

edited Mar 14 '13 at 11:35

Ozair Kafray

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answered Jan 12 '11 at 18:04

EddieB

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"overwrites/removes any existing background resource," not really. – Yousha Aleayoub Sep 20 '15 at 17:55
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I had to use the above along with v.invalidate(); on the next line. – Hashim Akhtar May 05 '16 at 10:33
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tried this wasted time and went with the accepted answer, v.getBackground() gave nullpointer exception and crashed. – Siddarth G Jun 04 '17 at 13:56
This plus PorterDuff.Mode.SRC_IN solved for me so I wouldn't lose my background border. – Guilherme Carvalho Feb 28 '19 at 15:05

score 144 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 27 '17 at 18:05

144

Several choices to do this...

Set background to green:

v.setBackgroundColor(0x00FF00);

Set background to green with Alpha:

v.setBackgroundColor(0xFF00FF00);

Set background to green with Color.GREEN constant:

v.setBackgroundColor(Color.GREEN);

Set background to green defining in Colors.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>     
    <color name="myGreen">#00FF00</color> 
    <color name="myGreenWithAlpha">#FF00FF00</color> 
</resources>

and using:

v.setBackgroundResource(R.color.myGreen);

and:

v.setBackgroundResource(R.color.myGreenWithAlpha);

or the longer winded:

v.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.myGreen));

and:

v.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.myGreenWithAlpha));

edited Feb 27 '17 at 18:05

weston

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answered Dec 17 '13 at 17:40

Jorgesys

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`getResources().getColor(...)` got deprecated http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31842983/getresources-getcolor-is-deprecated – Junior Mayhé Dec 25 '15 at 20:33
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There's also: `v.setBackgroundResource(R.color.myGreen);` when using `colors.xml` – grim Mar 25 '16 at 15:45
Removed the `invalidate` calls, as you can [see](http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.0_r1/android/view/View.java#View.setBackgroundDrawable%28android.graphics.drawable.Drawable%29) `setBackground...` methods already call that. – weston Feb 27 '17 at 18:08
`v.setBackgroundColor(0x00FF00);` is just their code which they say isn't working. I would also expect it to be transparent. – weston Feb 27 '17 at 18:11

score 40 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 20 '13 at 10:43

40

You can set the hex-color to any resource with:

View.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#e7eecc"));

edited Dec 20 '13 at 10:43

Mobiletainment

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answered Dec 20 '13 at 10:12

Darsh Patel

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score 16 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 22 '14 at 04:38

// set the background to green
v.setBackgroundColor(0x0000FF00 );
v.invalidate();

The code does not set the button to green. Instead, it makes the button totally invisible.

Explanation: the hex value of the color is wrong. With an Alpha value of zero, the color will be invisible.

The correct hex value is 0xFF00FF00 for full opacity green. Any Alpha value between 00 and FF would cause transparency.

score 13 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 22 '15 at 10:17

13

For setting the first color to be seen on screen, you can also do it in the relevant layout.xml (better design) by adding this property to the relevant View:

android:background="#FF00FF00"

answered Jan 22 '15 at 10:17

JustinB

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The question makes clear that the color change needs to be dynamic. – Peter vdL Mar 09 '19 at 14:58

score 12 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 01 '10 at 00:55

and what is the correct way to change the background color on any View?

On any View? What you have is correct, though you should drop the invalidate() call.

However, some Views already have backgrounds. A Button, for example, already has a background: the face of the button itself. This background is a StateListDrawable, which you can find in android-2.1/data/res/drawable/btn_default.xml in your Android SDK installation. That, in turn, refers to a bunch of nine-patch bitmap images, available in multiple densities. You would need to clone and modify all of that to accomplish your green goals.

In short, you will be better served finding another UI pattern rather than attempting to change the background of a Button.

OK, thanks for the explanation about Button backgrounds. Nine patch bitmaps (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/NinePatch.html) were new to me. I simply want to change the color of anything on the screen when I press a Button. The Buttons are on a TextView. Trying to change the color of that, leads to console messages "DDM dispatch reg wait timeout... ActivityManager: Can't dispatch DDM chunk 52454151: no handler defined" and a dialog on screen "the app stopped unexpectedly". Guess I need to do more reading on the UI. Any hints welcome. Thanks. — Peter vdL, Feb 01 '10 at 15:16

score 12 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 28 '15 at 08:58

12

try to add:

setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#FF0000"));

answered Sep 28 '15 at 08:58

Long Rainbow

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score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 30 '16 at 10:51

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I use at API min 16 , target 23

Button WeekDoneButton = (Button) viewWeeklyTimetable.findViewById(R.id.week_done_button);

WeekDoneButton.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(getActivity(), R.color.colorAccent));

answered Mar 30 '16 at 10:51

Vostro

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score 7 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 13 '21 at 01:16

7

This works for me

v.getBackground().setTint(Color.parseColor("#212121"));

That way only changes the color of the background without change the background itself. This is usefull for example if you have a background with rounded corners.

answered Feb 13 '21 at 01:16

Martin Olariaga

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score 6 · Answer 11 · answered May 12 '17 at 09:20

6

mButton.setBackgroundColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.myColor));

answered May 12 '17 at 09:20

Gianluca Demarinis

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daniel kilinskas · Answer 12 · 2015-08-23T11:20:36.443

5

You can simple use :

view.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#FFFFFF"));

edited Aug 23 '15 at 11:20

answered Aug 23 '15 at 11:13

daniel kilinskas

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score 5 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 02 '18 at 09:53

5

You can simple use :

view.setBackgroundColor(Color.rgb(0, 198, 255));

answered Sep 02 '18 at 09:53

Mahmoud Salah Eldin

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score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Jun 02 '16 at 12:01

4

Stating with Android 6 use ContextCompact

        view.setBackgroundColor( ContextCompat.getColor(this, R.color.your_color));

answered Jun 02 '16 at 12:01

Raluca Lucaci

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score 4 · Answer 15 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

4

This question talks about changing the background color of a view. In one of the answers, the person explains how to change the background color during runtime. Obviously you are going to look into how to modify other objects on the screen, but this should give you a good start by at least allowing you to modify the background color of the view on button click.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Community

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answered Dec 09 '10 at 21:18

jbranchaud

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score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 27 '19 at 14:06

In kotlin you could do it like this:

val backgroundColor = R.color.whatever_color_you_like
view.setBackgroundColor(getColorCompat(backgroundColor))

Where getColorCompat() is an extension function:

/**
 * Extension method to provide simpler access to {@link ContextCompat#getColor(int)}.
 */

 fun Context.getColorCompat(color: Int) = ContextCompat.getColor(this, color)

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Mar 08 '19 at 13:51

1

view.setBackgroundColor(R.color.primaryColor);

Adds color to previous color value, so i have a different color.

What works for me is :

view.setBackgroundResource(R.color.primaryColor);

answered Mar 08 '19 at 13:51

meralon

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score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 10 '19 at 13:18

Let suppose we have a primary color in values=>colors.xml as:

<resources>
    <color name="primary">#FDD835</color>
</resources>

so if we want to use our custom color into setBackgroundColor(@ColorInt int Color) then we just need an annotation @SuppressLint("ResourceAsColor") with constructor/method which will be used as:

    @SuppressLint("ResourceAsColor")
    public _LinearLayout(Context context) {
        super(context);

        // Formatting our layout : )
        super.setBackgroundColor(R.color.primary);

        ....


    }

score 0 · Answer 19 · edited Oct 01 '19 at 18:20

0

You must pass an int in the argument.

First Example:

view.setBackgroundColor(-500136)

Second Example:

int colorId = R.color.green;

view.setBackgroundResource(colorId);

edited Oct 01 '19 at 18:20

Teamothy

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answered Oct 01 '19 at 16:28

David Mutenda

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score 0 · Answer 20 · edited Oct 01 '19 at 18:41

0

This should work fine: v.setBackgroundColor(0xFF00FF00);

edited Oct 01 '19 at 18:41

slfan

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answered Oct 01 '19 at 18:22

nishanuw

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score 0 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 14 '19 at 10:07

I tried all the above ways. But I havent achieve what i need. Here is my try. If you are using hexcode for color and want to set the color as background of image, then this is the kotlin code.

val bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(30, 30, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888)
val canvas = Canvas(bitmap)
val colorCode = "#ffffff"
canvas.drawColor(Color.parseColor(colorCode))
mImageViewLogo.setImageBitmap(bitmap)

Anthony. · Answer 22 · 2023-01-21T23:22:23.617

0

When calling setBackgroundColor on a view you need to set the alpha value to a non-zero value (e.g. 0xFF), otherwise the color will not show up.

TextView tv = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.myTextview);
int rgb = 0xF05922; // Orange
tv.setBackgroundColor(0xFF000000|rgb); // Use bitwise OR to add alpha to RGB value

edited Jan 21 '23 at 23:22

answered Jan 21 '23 at 23:13

Anthony.

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How to set background color of a View

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