Change the color of a checked menu item in a navigation drawer

Question

I am using the new Android Design Support library to implement a navigation drawer in my application.

I can't figure out how to change the color of a selected item!

Here is the xml of the menu :

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/navigation_item_1"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_1"
        android:title="@string/navigation_item_1"/>

    <item
        android:id="@+id/navigation_item_2"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_2"
        android:title="@string/navigation_item_2"/>
</group>

And here is the navigationview xml which is placed inside a android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout :

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:id="@+id/activity_main_navigationview"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    app:headerLayout="@layout/drawer_header"
    app:itemIconTint="@color/black"
    app:itemTextColor="@color/primary_text"
    app:menu="@menu/menu_drawer">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/main_activity_version"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="bottom"
        android:layout_marginBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
        android:layout_marginLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
        android:textColor="@color/primary_text" />

</android.support.design.widget.NavigationView>

Thank you for your help !

[EDIT] I have already looked at solutions such as this one : Change background color of android menu .

It seems to be quite a hack and I thought that with the new Design Support Library, something cleaner would have been introduced?

Answer 1

Well you can achieve this using Color State Resource . If you notice inside your NavigationView you're using

app:itemIconTint="@color/black"
app:itemTextColor="@color/primary_text"

Here instead of using @color/black or @color/primary_test , use a Color State List Resource . For that, first create a new xml (eg drawer_item.xml) inside color directory (which should be inside res directory.) If you don't have a directory named color already, create one.

Now inside drawer_item.xml do something like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:color="checked state color" android:state_checked="true" />
    <item android:color="your default color" />
</selector>

Final step would be to change your NavigationView

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:id="@+id/activity_main_navigationview"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    app:headerLayout="@layout/drawer_header"
    app:itemIconTint="@color/drawer_item"  // notice here
    app:itemTextColor="@color/drawer_item" // and here
    app:itemBackground="@android:color/transparent"// and here for setting the background color to tranparent
    app:menu="@menu/menu_drawer">

Like this you can use separate Color State List Resources for IconTint , ItemTextColor , ItemBackground .

Now when you set an item as checked (either in xml or programmatically), the particular item will have different color than the unchecked ones.

Answer 2

I believe app:itemBackground expects a drawable. So follow the steps below :

Make a drawable file highlight_color.xml with following contents :

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:shape="rectangle">
     <solid android:color="YOUR HIGHLIGHT COLOR"/>
</shape>

Make another drawable file nav_item_drawable.xml with following contents:

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
        <item android:drawable="@drawable/highlight_color" android:state_checked="true"/>
</selector>

Finally add app:itemBackground tag in the NavView :

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
android:id="@+id/activity_main_navigationview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
app:headerLayout="@layout/drawer_header"
app:itemIconTint="@color/black"
app:itemTextColor="@color/primary_text"
app:itemBackground="@drawable/nav_item_drawable"
app:menu="@menu/menu_drawer">

here the highlight_color.xml file defines a solid color drawable for the background. Later this color drawable is assigned to nav_item_drawable.xml selector.

This worked for me. Hopefully this will help.

********************************************** UPDATED **********************************************

Though the above mentioned answer gives you fine control over some properties, but the way I am about to describe feels more SOLID and is a bit COOLER .

So what you can do is, you can define a ThemeOverlay in the styles.xml for the NavigationView like this :

    <style name="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.navTheme">

        <!-- Color of text and icon when SELECTED -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/color_of_your_choice</item> 

        <!-- Background color when SELECTED -->
        <item name="colorControlHighlight">@color/color_of_your_choice</item> 

    </style>

now apply this ThemeOverlay to app:theme attribute of NavigationView, like this:

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
android:id="@+id/activity_main_navigationview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.navTheme"
app:headerLayout="@layout/drawer_header"
app:menu="@menu/menu_drawer">

I hope this will help.

Answer 3

One need to set NavigateItem checked true whenever item in NavigateView is clicked

//listen for navigation events
NavigationView navigationView = (NavigationView)findViewById(R.id.navigation);
navigationView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(this);
// select the correct nav menu item
navigationView.getMenu().findItem(mNavItemId).setChecked(true);

Add NavigationItemSelectedListener on NavigationView

  @Override
  public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(final MenuItem menuItem) {
    // update highlighted item in the navigation menu
    menuItem.setChecked(true);
    mNavItemId = menuItem.getItemId();

    // allow some time after closing the drawer before performing real navigation
    // so the user can see what is happening
    mDrawerLayout.closeDrawer(GravityCompat.START);
    mDrawerActionHandler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
      @Override
      public void run() {
        navigate(menuItem.getItemId());
      }
    }, DRAWER_CLOSE_DELAY_MS);
    return true;
  }

Answer 4

Here is the another way to achive this:

public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

    int id = item.getItemId();

    item.setOnMenuItemClickListener(new MenuItem.OnMenuItemClickListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
            item.setEnabled(true);
            item.setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ff3824'>Settings</font>"));
            return false;
            }
        });


    //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement
    if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
        return true;
    }

    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}

}

Answer 5

Step 1: Build a checked/unchecked selector:

selector.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:color="@color/yellow" android:state_checked="true" />
    <item android:color="@color/white" android:state_checked="false" />
</selector>

Step 2: use the XML attribute app:itemTextColor within NavigationView widget for selecting the text color.

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:id="@+id/nav_view"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    app:headerLayout="@layout/navigation_header_layout"
    app:itemTextColor="@drawable/selector"
    app:menu="@menu/navigation_menu" />

Step 3 & 4:

Step 3: To make menu icons check-able: wrap all items in a <group> and set android:checkableBehavior="single"

Step 4: To change icon color: set the selector to all the items with app:iconTint

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    
    <group android:checkableBehavior="single">
    
        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_account"
            android:checked="true"
            android:icon="@drawable/ic_person_black_24dp"
            android:title="My Account"
            app:iconTint="@drawable/selector" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_settings"
            android:icon="@drawable/ic_settings_black_24dp"
            android:title="Settings"
            app:iconTint="@drawable/selector" />

        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_logout"
            android:icon="@drawable/logout"
            android:title="Log Out"
            app:iconTint="@drawable/selector" />
    </group>

</menu>

Result:

Side Note:

If setting android:checkableBehavior="single" not working, then you handle this programmatically by manually making the selected item checked and clear the previously selected item:

@Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) {

    int id = item.getItemId();
    
    // remove all colors of the items to the `unchecked` state of the selector
    removeColor(mNavigationView);
    
    // check the selected item to change its color set by the `checked` state of the selector
    item.setChecked(true);

    switch (item.getItemId()) {
      case R.id.dashboard:
          ...
    }

    drawerLayout.closeDrawer(GravityCompat.START);
    return true;
}

private void removeColor(NavigationView view) {
    for (int i = 0; i < view.getMenu().size(); i++) {
        MenuItem item = view.getMenu().getItem(i);
        item.setChecked(false);
    }
}

Answer 6

Here's how you can do it in your Activity's onCreate method:

NavigationView navigationView = findViewById(R.id.nav_view);
ColorStateList csl = new ColorStateList(
    new int[][] {
        new int[] {-android.R.attr.state_checked}, // unchecked
        new int[] { android.R.attr.state_checked}  // checked
    },
    new int[] {
        Color.BLACK,
        Color.RED
    }
);
navigationView.setItemTextColor(csl);
navigationView.setItemIconTintList(csl);