Customizing Android Studio Theme: A Step-by-Step Guide

Android developers often find themselves wanting to customize their app's appearance without modifying the code or recompiling it. One way to achieve this is by creating custom themes in Android Studio and applying them programmatically. In this article, we'll explore how to create custom themes, group custom attributes together, and apply them dynamically.

Defining Custom Attributes

To start, let's define some custom attributes that we can use to customize our theme. We can do this using the `attr` element in our `styles.xml` file. For example, we can define a few color resources:

```xml

```

We've defined three custom attributes: `textColor`, `background`, and `textSize`. These attributes can be used to customize the appearance of our app's UI.

Grouping Custom Attributes into Styles

Now that we have defined our custom attributes, let's group them together into a style. We'll create two themes, Theme1 and Theme2, each with its own set of custom attributes. Here's an example:

```xml

```

We've created two themes, each with its own set of custom attributes. We can use these themes to customize the appearance of our app's UI.

Applying Themes Programmatically

Now that we have defined our custom themes, let's see how we can apply them programmatically. We can do this using the `setTheme()` method in our Activity:

```java

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setTheme(R.style.Theme1); // Apply Theme1

// or

setTheme(R.style.Theme2); // Apply Theme2

}

```

We can apply our custom theme programmatically by calling the `setTheme()` method in our Activity's `onCreate()` method.

Dynamic Theme Selection

What if we want to allow users to select their preferred theme dynamically? We can achieve this by providing a list of themes and allowing users to choose from them. Here's an example:

```java

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

private int currentTheme;

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setTheme(currentTheme); // Apply the selected theme

}

public void changeTheme(int themeId) {

currentTheme = themeId;

recreate(); // Re-create the Activity with the new theme

}

```

We've created a `changeTheme()` method that allows us to apply a new theme dynamically. We can call this method whenever we want to switch between themes.

In this article, we've explored how to create custom themes in Android Studio and apply them programmatically. We've also seen how to group custom attributes together into styles and define colors and dimensions for our custom attributes. Finally, we've learned how to apply themes dynamically using the `setTheme()` method and provide a new setting which will allow one to choose from a list of themes. By following these steps, you can customize your Android app's appearance without modifying the code or recompiling it.

Custominzing android studio theme