How to set unique TextView text color through Android Theme when multiple Themes are available

Question

I have a couple of Themes in an app and it works ok. Now I wanted to set a chat bubble text color to color red when user select BaseTheme.Red , and text color orange when user select BaseTheme.Orange (see code below)

It´s only the chat bubble text right that I want to be like red for the ´Red´ and Orange for the Orange Theme and all other TextView text color in the app will have default Theme color .

I try to learn Android Themes and got into trouble setting this chat TextView text color to another color then this global:

<item name="android:textColor">@color/white</item>

I created this: Inside the BaseTheme.Red

<item name="chatBubbleTextColor">@color/material_red_500</item>

and thought I could use it in the TextView xml like

android:textColor="?attr/chatBubbleTextColor"

but i cannot get it to work maybe it does not work like that?

How can I with the Themes below make this work?

Here is two Themes Red and Orange :

    <!-- Base Theme -->
<style name="BaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Attributes for all APIs -->
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
    <item name="dialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog</item>
    <item name="alertDialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog.Alert</item>
    <item name="colorControlHighlight">@color/selector_black_pressed</item>
    <!-- Theme for the Preferences -->
    <item name="preferenceTheme">@style/AppPreferenceTheme</item>
    <!-- Theme for the pacv_placesAutoCompleteTextV -->
    <item name="pacv_placesAutoCompleteTextViewStyle">@style/Widget.AppCompat.EditText</item>



<!-- Default App Theme -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="BaseTheme">
        <!-- API specific attributes 14+ -->
        <item name="selectableRectDrawable">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rect_black</item>
        <item name="selectableRectDrawableInverse">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rect_white</item>
        <item name="selectableRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rect_black</item>
        <item name="selectableRoundedRectDrawable">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rounded_rect_black</item>
        <item name="selectableRoundedRectDrawableInverse">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rounded_rect_white</item>
        <item name="selectableRoundedRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rounded_rect_black</item>
    </style>



    <!-- Orange App Theme -->
    <style name="BaseTheme.Orange" parent="AppTheme">
        <!-- Attributes for all APIs -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/material_orange_500</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/material_orange_700</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/material_orange_a700</item>
        <item name="dialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog.Orange</item>
        <item name="alertDialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog.Alert.Orange</item>
        <item name="android:windowBackground">@color/material_orange_300</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.Orange" parent="BaseTheme.Orange">
        <!-- API specific attributes 14+ -->
        <item name="selectableRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rect_orange</item>
        <item name="selectableRoundedRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rounded_rect_orange</item>

        <!-- Add your custom overall styles here -->
    </style>




    <!-- Red App Theme -->
    <style name="BaseTheme.Red" parent="AppTheme">
        <!-- Attributes for all APIs -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/material_red_500</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/material_red_700</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/material_red_a700</item>
        <item name="dialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog.Red</item>
        <item name="alertDialogTheme">@style/AppTheme.Dialog.Alert.Red</item>
        <item name="android:windowBackground">@color/material_red_300</item>
        <!-- Chat bubble attribute not working-->
        <item name="chatBubbleTextColor">@color/material_red_500</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.Red" parent="BaseTheme.Red">
        <!-- API specific attributes 14+ -->
        <item name="selectableRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rect_red</item>
        <item name="selectableRoundedRectDrawableColored">@drawable/state_list_selectable_rounded_rect_red</item>

        <!-- Add your custom overall styles here -->
    </style>

Answer 1

I found the answer to my own question here

Basically, it goes like this:

In the file attr.xml, I define this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <attr name="ChatBubbleBackGroundColor" format="reference|color" />
    <attr name="ChatBubbleTextColor" format="reference|color" />
</resources>

Next I add to my two BaseTheme:

<style name="BaseTheme.Red" parent="AppTheme">
   <item name="ChatBubbleBackGroundColor">@color/material_red_a200</item>
   <item name="ChatBubbleTextColor">@color/material_red_a700</item>
</style>

<style name="BaseTheme.Orange" parent="AppTheme">
   <item name="ChatBubbleBackGroundColor">@color/material_orange_a200</item>
   <item name="ChatBubbleTextColor">@color/material_orange_a700</item>
</style>

and finally in my layout

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/quoteTitle"
    android:textColor="?ChatBubbleTextColor"
    android:BackGround="?ChatBubbleBackGroundColor"
    ...
</TextView>