android :Customizing Button with dynamic values

Question

I want to customize Buttons for my application. The application has a color picker where the user will select color and I have to set that particular start/end color to the buttons. These colro values will be stored in an object "Utility".

Basically from start only, I want to use "Utility" object to set colors for background, text color, font, etc. And again when the color is changed by the user I got to change it to the buttons and refresh them. And also to save colors in a file, so next time user starts app, it comes up with the last color selected.

I couldn't find <selector> to be the best option, as I wont be able to change the color in xml. What can be the best option for such requirement ?

UPDATIONS : @jitendra, from your answer I got somethign helpful. I use GradientDrawable to set colors of my buttons. In my onCreate() of the Activity, I call a method RefreshComponents() that sets the background of root, text color/size of buttons and gradient colors of the buttons. It works properly, but the only problem I see is the on applying GradientDrawable to the button the gap between 2 buttons is lost.

This is the image WITHOUT applying GradientDrawable :

On applying GradientDrawable the output is :

You see the size of button is increased a bit from all the sides. If I apply to next button also, they both touch eachother. My xml for the above is :

<LinearLayout
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:id="@+id/mainroot" android:layout_width="fill_parent"    
  android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:orientation="vertical"
  android:paddingTop="35dip" android:paddingBottom="35dip" 
  android:paddingLeft="35dip" android:paddingRight="35dip"android:gravity="center" >

   <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      android:id="@+id/mainrow1" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:orientation="horizontal" 
      android:layout_marginBottom="15dip" android:gravity="center_horizontal" >
         <Button android:text="Accounting" android:id="@+id/accBtn" android:layout_width="80dip" style="@style/TileButtonStyle"  />
        <Button android:text="Data" android:id="@+id/dataBtn" android:layout_width="80dip" android:layout_height="fill_parent"></Button>
        <Button android:text="Information" android:id="@+id/infoBtn" android:layout_width="80dip" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:ellipsize="end"></Button>
  </LinearLayout>
  ..... Other lineasr layout with same parameters as above child 

And the GradientDrawable that I create is :

    public static GradientDrawable getButtonDrawable(Button btn) {
    int colors[] = {getStartColor(), getEndColor()};
    GradientDrawable grad = new GradientDrawable(GradientDrawable.Orientation.LEFT_RIGHT, colors);
    grad.setCornerRadius(5f);
    return grad;
}

And finally in my onCreate(), I add :

    GradientDrawable btnGradient = Utility.getButtonDrawable(btn1); 
btn1.setBackgroundDrawable(btnGradient);

What is going wrong here ? Is the margin around the button becoming 0 ? Do I have to set bounds for the grad, or again set LayoutParams for the button ?

Any help is appreciative to help me achieve my goal.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can Create StateListDrawable Object dynamically in java file and set as background and sources of applcation components.

Answer 2

Android has Themes and Styles, but they are a development-time feature and can't be manipulated at runtime. However, different predefined themes can be applied at runtime.

So you can have a set of predefined themes, with fixed view properties (colors, fonts, etc..) and give user an option to choose a theme at runtime.

But, if you need to change every particular view property, then you will need to roll your own "theme" system. Which means you will need to have properties stored somewhere and applied each time a view is built.

Answer 3

Tvd! I incline to agree with Peter Knego and Jitender Sharma. Furthermore, I think/believe you can setOnClickListener on those buttons of yours and perform your color changing stuff with the code that rests inside the setOnClickListenermethod assigned to every button. In addition to this, you'll have to configure your color.xml file and custom themes. There's a lot of work to be done. I'm not really sure which is the best way though. I strongly suggest you to go through the android learning stuff I'd provided to you in my previous answer. Only they can give you a detailed insight and a solid idea to go ahead. All the best!

Answer 4

Oh I got the solution :

I added layout_marginRight attribute to buttons and that did the work.

Though I am still concerned, without GradientDrawable the buttons had margin betweenthem then after applying GradientDrawable why is the default margin lost ? Why is the need of additional layout_marginRight to be added ?

If anyone yet has answer for this, please let me know.

Thanks