Activity using prefs.xml <ListPreference> for Colour changing crashes when started

Question

I'm trying to change background and/or text colours of my Main activity with a SettingsActivity which is opened with the settings button and pretty much only calls addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences). This is the SettingsActivity:

public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity {

@SuppressWarnings("deprecation")

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);
}
}

I have string-arrays in an arrays.xml text_color_entries holding names, ..._values holding @android:color/... like values and an #rrggbb value:

<resources>

<string-array name="text_size_entries">
    <item>16 pt</item>
    <item>18 pt</item>
    <item>20 pt</item>
    <item>22 pt</item>
    <item>24 pt</item>
    <item>26 pt</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="text_size_values">
    <item>16</item>
    <item>18</item>
    <item>20</item>
    <item>22</item>
    <item>24</item>
    <item>26</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="background_colour_entries">
    <item>Original</item>
    <item>White</item>
    <item>Light Orange</item>
    <item>Dark Orange</item>
    <item>Light Green</item>
    <item>Dark Green</item>
    <item>Light Red</item>
    <item>Dark Red</item>
    <item>Bright Blue</item>
    <item>Light Blue</item>
    <item>Dark Blue</item>
    <item>Black</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="background_colour_values">
    <item>#0030ff</item>
    <item>@android:color/background_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_orange_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_green_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_green_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_red_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_red_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_bright</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/background_dark</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="text_colour_entries">
    <item>Original(Light Orange)</item>
    <item>White</item>
    <item>Light Orange</item>
    <item>Dark Orange</item>
    <item>Light Green</item>
    <item>Dark Green</item>
    <item>Light Red</item>
    <item>Dark Red</item>
    <item>Bright Blue</item>
    <item>Light Blue</item>
    <item>Dark Blue</item>
    <item>Black</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="text_colour_values">
    <item>@android:color/holo_orange_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/background_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_orange_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_green_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_green_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_red_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_red_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_bright</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_light</item>
    <item>@android:color/holo_blue_dark</item>
    <item>@android:color/background_dark</item>
</string-array>
</resources>

And a preferences.xml holding a CheckboxPreference and 3 ListPreferences:

<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:title="Settings">

<CheckBoxPreference
    android:key="pref_text_bold"
    android:title="Make Text Bold"
    android:summary="Makes the note text bold"
    android:defaultValue="false"/>

<ListPreference
    android:key="pref_text_size"
    android:title="Text Size"
    android:summary="Pick the text size"
    android:entries="@array/text_size_entries"
    android:entryValues="@array/text_size_values"
    android:defaultValue="16"/>
 <!-- Works if I erase/comment out anything below here -->
<ListPreference
    android:key="pref_background_colour"
    android:title="Background colour"
    android:summary="Choose the background colour of the app"
    android:entries="@array/background_colour_entries"
    android:entryValues="@array/background_colour_values"
    android:defaultValue="#0030ff"/>

<ListPreference
        android:key="pref_text_colour"
        android:title="Text colour"
        android:summary="Choose the colour of your text"
        android:entries="@array/text_colour_entries"
        android:entryValues="@array/text_colour_values"
        android:defaultValue="@android:color/holo_orange_light"/>

</PreferenceScreen>

When I only had the CheckboxPreference and the first ListPreference in there, it worked perfectly fine. It also works fine when I comment out the other 2 Listpreferences. But as soon I have at least one of the other ListPreferences in the app it crashes as soon as I try to open the settings activity. I haven't implemented those other two preference lists in my MainActivity yet, I wanted to get the layout to work first.

Bonus question: How exactly should I implement the background and edittext-text color changing, is it even possible using the ressource links, and can I use a

   <color>  

array instead?

Thanks for your time, I hope that's not too much stuff up there.

Greetings, Marlon

EDIT: Tried to debug, didn't really help me. Went through some deeper classes I don't know about and then crashed. Also, LogCat says there is a NullPointerException somewhere, but doesn't give me a concrete position in my code, only points to
ListPreference.findiIndexOfValue(Listpreference.java:223)

Edit 2: esme-louise pointed out my value arrays were missing a line. I changed that, it unfortunately didn't solve the problem.

Edit 3: color.xml now looks like Audi describes, ListPrefrence now has android:entries="@array/background_colors"
android:entryValues="@array/background_colors" but still crashes the app when starting the settings activity.

Edit 4: I now put notesEditText.setTextColor(Color.parseColor(sharedPreferences.getString ("pref_background_colour", "@color/OriginalBackground"))); into the method called when returning from the settings, worrying about that when the Layout thing works.

The LogCat:

02-08 16:07:25.395  23749-23749/com.regenhardt.savingstate E/﹕ appName=com.regenhardt.savingstate, acAppName=/system/bin/surfaceflinger
02-08 16:07:25.395  23749-23749/com.regenhardt.savingstate E/﹕ 0
02-08 16:07:29.357  23749-23749/com.regenhardt.savingstate E/TextView﹕ get resource from application failed.
**This one comes many, many times here and before the surfaceflinger thing, practically all the time it's running. I deleted a TextView from the layout and commented it out of the java code; wasn't anything dynamic, just a title**
02-08 16:07:30.932  23749-23749/com.regenhardt.savingstate E/TextView﹕ get resource from application failed.
02-08 16:07:30.952  23749-23749/com.regenhardt.savingstate E/AndroidRuntime﹕ FATAL EXCEPTION: main
    Process: com.regenhardt.savingstate, PID: 23749
    java.lang.NullPointerException
            at android.preference.ListPreference.findIndexOfValue(ListPreference.java:223)
**From here on stuff I couldn't even begin to understand so didn't bother digging into android**
            at android.preference.ListPreference.getValueIndex(ListPreference.java:232)
            at android.preference.ListPreference.getEntry(ListPreference.java:210)
            at android.preference.ListPreference.getSummary(ListPreference.java:156)
            at android.preference.Preference.onBindView(Preference.java:534)
            at android.preference.Preference.getView(Preference.java:472)
            at android.preference.PreferenceGroupAdapter.getView(PreferenceGroupAdapter.java:221)
            at android.widget.AbsListView.obtainView(AbsListView.java:2338)
            at android.widget.ListView.makeAndAddView(ListView.java:1812)
            at android.widget.ListView.fillDown(ListView.java:698)
            at android.widget.ListView.fillFromTop(ListView.java:759)
            at android.widget.ListView.layoutChildren(ListView.java:1645)
            at android.widget.AbsListView.onLayout(AbsListView.java:2149)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.setChildFrame(LinearLayout.java:1888)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.layoutVertical(LinearLayout.java:1742)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.onLayout(LinearLayout.java:1651)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.setChildFrame(LinearLayout.java:1888)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.layoutHorizontal(LinearLayout.java:1877)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.onLayout(LinearLayout.java:1653)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.setChildFrame(LinearLayout.java:1888)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.layoutVertical(LinearLayout.java:1742)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.onLayout(LinearLayout.java:1651)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.FrameLayout.layoutChildren(FrameLayout.java:515)
            at android.widget.FrameLayout.onLayout(FrameLayout.java:450)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.setChildFrame(LinearLayout.java:1888)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.layoutVertical(LinearLayout.java:1742)
            at android.widget.LinearLayout.onLayout(LinearLayout.java:1651)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.widget.FrameLayout.layoutChildren(FrameLayout.java:515)
            at android.widget.FrameLayout.onLayout(FrameLayout.java:450)
            at android.view.View.layout(View.java:15125)
            at android.view.ViewGroup.layout(ViewGroup.java:4862)
            at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performLayout(ViewRootImpl.java:2317)
            at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:2023)
            at android.view.ViewRootImpl.doTraversal(ViewRootImpl.java:1189)
            at android.view.ViewRootImpl$TraversalRunnable.run(ViewRootImpl.java:6223)
            at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:788)
            at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:591)
            at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:560)
            at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:774)
            at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:808)
            at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:103)
            at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
            at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5292)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:824)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:640)
            at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

Try using a color array instead of a string array. It is something like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <color name="black">#000000</color>
    <color name="white">#FFFFFF</color>
</resources>

Add this to your strings.xml

<string-array name="backgroud_entries">
     <item>Black</item>
     <item>White</item>
</string-array>

<string-array name="background_entry_values">
     <item>@color/black</item>
     <item>@color/white</item>
</string-array>

Modify your ListPreference like this

<ListPreference
    android:key="pref_background_colour"
    android:title="Background colour"
    android:summary="Choose the background colour of the app"
    android:entries="@array/background_entries"
    android:entryValues="@array/background_entry_values"
    android:defaultValue="#0030ff"/>