Change ActionBar title text color using Light.DarkActionBar theme in AppCompat 21

Question

I'm using the v7 appcompat 21 library to use the new Material styles on pre-Lollipop devices. My styles.xml looks like this:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:textColorPrimary">#ff0000</item>
    <item name="android:textColorPrimaryInverse">#ff0000</item>
</style>

I am trying to change the text color on the action bar. But no matter what I put for textColorPrimary or textColorPrimaryInverse, the color is always white. If I inherit from Theme.AppCompat, I can override "textColorPrimary", and if I inherit from Theme.AppCompat.Light, I can override "textColorPrimaryInverse". But neither work when using the Light.DarkActionBar theme.

I am definitely using the AppTheme because setting attributes like colorPrimary to change the actionbar background color works fine. I am not using any other resource qualifier style files.

I've dug through the android styles files and can't seem to figure out what attribute to override. Any ideas? Is this an appcompat bug?

score 172 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 11 '14 at 18:09

172

You can change it with actionBarStyle attribute of theme.

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>

<style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar.Solid">
    <item name="titleTextStyle">@style/MyTitleTextStyle</item>
</style>

<style name="MyTitleTextStyle" parent="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
    <item name="android:textColor">CHANGE_COLOR_HERE</item>
</style>

answered Nov 11 '14 at 18:09

jimmy0251

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For some reason setting the textColor the way you did has no effect when running on Android 5 or Android 4 device (those are the two i have tested it on) - any ideas? I am using Toolbar with AppCompatActivity and apply above theme in my manifest. – AgentKnopf Jul 29 '15 at 18:10
6

@AgentKnopf This will work only with ActionBar. You have to set your ToolBar as an ActionBar in order for this to work. – jimmy0251 May 03 '16 at 03:16
1

This is not working for me. I am using toolbar and set it as actionbar. I have used Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar for my app and ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar for AppBarLayout and style ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light for toolbar – Rakesh Yadav Mar 30 '18 at 07:33
I'd really like to know what this would look like if it is possible to compress the three style resources under one parent xml tag – Harsha May 07 '18 at 15:04
What about styling of the subtitle ? How would that go ? – mirzak May 21 '18 at 12:56

vovahost · Answer 2 · 2017-11-28T10:00:36.213

26

This will make your Toolbar Title use white color:

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"
    android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
    android:background="?attr/colorPrimary" />

To understand what is the difference between ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar and Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar check this answer

It's app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar" that applies a light colour because the title colour which is used in this theme is white.

edited Nov 28 '17 at 10:00

answered Mar 08 '16 at 15:38

vovahost

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This answer is not very specific about what is required to make it work. Which part is it that makes it white? What if someone wants to make it red? Where is the app: prefix defined? – Thibault D. Nov 27 '17 at 14:55
@Thibault D. I've added some more details to my answer. – vovahost Nov 27 '17 at 15:19
Thank you for your quick answer, I'll give a shot today! – Thibault D. Nov 28 '17 at 07:17

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 14 '14 at 06:53

4

make sure you make the changes in all your values folder, like 'values-v11', 'values-v14' etc.. if it exists.

Else make sure the same 'AppTheme' you shown above is being used in the app.

Please post you full style.xml and the manifest code referring the style which will give more insights on your problem.

Also you can try setting app:theme and app:popupTheme attributes on you ToolBar.

answered Nov 14 '14 at 06:53

Sreekanth

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`` works! – sancho21 Dec 07 '14 at 13:17

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 12 '20 at 22:37

3

Try adding this in the onCreate of your Activity. Works on almost every Android version.

For Java Activities:

actionBar.setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ffff00'>Your Title</font>"));

For Fragments:

getSupportActionBar().setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ffff00'>Your Title</font>"));

edited Apr 12 '20 at 22:37

Manaus

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answered Oct 14 '16 at 05:28

onexf

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don't do it, use styles – user25 Jul 01 '18 at 10:11

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 19 '20 at 09:20

Unfortunately I struggled a lot to change the color of App name. I was having many themes. Finally what worked for me is changing below two attributes.

    <item name="android:textColorPrimary">#FF0000</item>
    <item name="android:textColorSecondary">#FF0000</item>

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 10:52

1

I used a generated layout xml file and didn't notice that the android:theme attribute was overriden.

Did you check yours? :)

answered Jan 20 '17 at 10:52

DoruChidean

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score -3 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 11 '14 at 18:00

-3

Try this:

<item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/red</item>

answered Nov 11 '14 at 18:00

Roberto Betancourt

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This only colors the text inside the overflow menu. – Adam Feb 26 '15 at 01:55

Change ActionBar title text color using Light.DarkActionBar theme in AppCompat 21

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