Styling Android Action Bar

Question

I've a newly created project and the first thing I want to do is add and style an action bar. I made it the way they tell in their official tutorials and even tried some other ways but I just can't make it work. After many tries, I decided to do something really basic but even like that I can't make it work. This is what I have:

styles.xml

<resources>

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/ActionBar</item>
</style>

<style name="ActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:background">@color/blue</item>

</style>

manifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
    <activity
        android:name=".MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/app_name" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
</application>

Another question is what is the difference between the @android:style/Theme.Holo, @style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar or simply Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Per the Using the Material Theme training , the Material theme (and AppCompat theme's which backport / use Material theming) use colorPrimary to color the action bar. Therefore your theme can be:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/blue</item>
</style>

You'll find more details on how to theme using AppCompat / Material in the AppCompat v21 blog post and in this pro-tip

Answer 2

I recommend you use this tools to generate ActionBar styles:

http://jgilfelt.github.io/android-actionbarstylegenerator/

Good Luck!