How to change programmatically background color of action bar items

Question

It is easy to set a default color of the items background in action bar by setting:

<item name="android:actionBarItemBackground">@drawable/action_bar_item_background</item>

in application theme.

I would like to change this color only for one of my fragments. How to do it programmatically?

score 11 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

11

Have you tried the solution from user3225831 mentioned here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21297231/1738838

ActionBar bar = getActionBar();
bar.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable("COLOR"));

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Aug 01 '14 at 14:05

Elementary

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Yes I did, it is changing the background color of the action bar but NOT background color of menu items. – Tomasz Aug 01 '14 at 14:08
You mean the background color of the tabs? – Elementary Aug 01 '14 at 14:10
I am talking about action bar items. Look at [2] on this picture http://developer.android.com/images/ui/actionbar@2x.png – Tomasz Aug 01 '14 at 14:13
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Icons are should be in png (background transparent) – Rajesh Mikkilineni Aug 01 '14 at 14:23
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I'm not sure, but I think a solution could be to define your own style for this case and then just switch the styles. – Elementary Aug 01 '14 at 14:28
@RajeshM: I think Tomasz doesn't want to change the color of the hole action bar, but only of the background of the small square where the icon of his action bar item is placed in. – Elementary Aug 01 '14 at 14:32

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 19 '15 at 12:04

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Use simple one line code... Pass RGB values of the required color

getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.rgb(248, 248, 248)));

For Color codes, you can use this website: http://www.rapidtables.com/web/color/RGB_Color.htm

answered Feb 19 '15 at 12:04

Srikanth P

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@RuchirBaronia I guess we'll never know – Denny Dec 03 '17 at 15:05

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 27 '14 at 12:43

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I have found a simple workaround of this problem. You can set transparent color to the background of action bar item. Then changing color of the action bar will change background of the item. I don't see possibility to change item color without recreating an the activity.

answered Oct 27 '14 at 12:43

Tomasz

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@ramesh6233 if you can recreate activity it is not a problem, otherwise use my tip. – Tomasz Jan 14 '15 at 08:48
Can you tell me how to set transparent color to action bar item. Thank you. – Ramesh Jan 14 '15 at 14:17
Define your custom theme in `styles.xml` file using code from my question and then use it in AndroidManifest file: ` – Tomasz Jan 14 '15 at 15:10

How to change programmatically background color of action bar items

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