How to change Navigation Drawer's header layout background color dynamically?

Question

As you know, android studio has a Navigation Drawer Activity which creates a bunch of layouts by itself inside the layout folder.

nav_header_main.xml is the layout which contains the components of the NavigationView header. I have highlighted it in the above picture and It has the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/sideNavLayout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="@dimen/nav_header_height"
    android:background="@drawable/side_nav_bar"
    android:gravity="bottom"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark">

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/imageView"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:paddingTop="@dimen/nav_header_vertical_spacing"
        android:src="@android:drawable/sym_def_app_icon" />

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:paddingTop="@dimen/nav_header_vertical_spacing"
        android:text="Android Studio"
        android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Body1" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="android.studio@android.com" />

</LinearLayout>

I want to change the background of the highlighted portion in the above picture from the MainActivity.java like so:

LinearLayout sideNavLayout;
sideNavLayout = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.sideNavLayout);
sideNavLayout.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_side_nav_bar);

But where ever I use it I get the error:

java.lang.NullPointerException

Can anyone help me in this regard?

Answer 1

You should inflate the navview header layout to access the children

NavigationView navView= (NavigationView) findViewById(R.id.nav_view);
View header=navView.getHeaderView(0);
LinearLayout sideNavLayout = (LinearLayout)header.findViewById(R.id.sideNavLayout);
sideNavLayout.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_side_nav_bar);