How to change the Text color of Menu item in Android?

How to change the Text color of Menu item in Android?

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Can I change the background color of a Menu item in Android? Please let me know if anyone have any solution to this. The last option will be obviously to customize it but is there any way for changing the text color without customizing it. android menuitem textcolor layout-inflater link|improve this question edited Jan 10 at 12:40 infinity 2,431517 asked Aug 19 '10 at 6:29 sunil 98131843 67% accept rate

Is there anyone who can let me know the solution to this? – sunil Aug 26 '10 at 13:34 feedback

6 Answers

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up vote 3 down vote

Options menu in android can be customized to set the background or change the text appearance. The background and text color in the menu couldn’t be changed using themes and styles. The android source code (data\res\layout\icon_menu_item_layout.xml)uses a custom item of class “com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItem”View for the menu layout. We can make changes in the above class to customize the menu. To achieve the same, use LayoutInflater factory class and set the background and text color for the view. @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {     MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();     inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);     getLayoutInflater().setFactory(new Factory() {         @Override         public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {             if (name .equalsIgnoreCase(“com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItemView”)) {                 try{                     LayoutInflater f = getLayoutInflater();                     final View view = f.createView(name, null, attrs);                     new Handler().post(new Runnable() {                         public void run() {                             // set the background drawable                             view .setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_ac_menu_background);                             // set the text color                             ((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);                         }                     });                     return view;                 } catch (InflateException e) {                     } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {}             }             return null;         }     });     return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); } link|improve this answer edited Jun 2 '11 at 21:18 Terrance 2,14211131 answered Jun 2 '11 at 5:49 Abhay Kumar 335112

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up vote 1 down vote

It seems that an   <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/myCustomMenuTextApearance</item> in my theme and    <style name="myCustomMenuTextApearance" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item">         <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/primary_text_dark</item>     </style> in styles.xml change the style of list-items but not menu items. link|improve this answer answered Apr 4 '11 at 12:51 Marcus Wolschon 216210

This works great for context menu items (not menu items from the menu button) which is what I've been looking for. Much simpler than the whole LayoutFactory mess. – chubbard Jun 6 at 16:40 feedback

up vote 1 down vote	Try this solution, it works for me: http://www.techjini.com/blog/2011/04/19/customizing-background-and-text-color-in-options-menu-android/ link|improve this answer answered May 30 '11 at 16:25 sergeytch 493
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up vote 1 down vote

Sephy's solution doesn't work. It's possible to override the options menu item text appearance using the method described above, but not the item or menu. To do that there are essentially 3 ways: Change the background color of the options menu Write your own view to display and override onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu to get the results you want. I state this generally because you can generally do whatever you want in these methods, but you probably won't want to call into super(). Copy code from the open-source SDK and customize for your behavior. The default menu implementation used by Activity will no longer apply. See Issue 4441: Custom Options Menu Theme for more clues. link|improve this answer edited Jun 23 '11 at 9:03 Gilles 18.4k42062 answered Oct 17 '10 at 9:12 Tenacious 15913

To reiterate...Sephy's solution works for the menu item TextAppearance, though what I've done is override the default through a themes.xml. Also, #2 or #3 above should be aware that calling through to super#onCreateOptionsMenu/super#onPrepareOptionsMenu is designed to place system menu items...as indicated in the javadoc for Activity#onCreateOptionsMenu() . That may/may not matter for your app. – Tenacious Oct 17 '10 at 10:42 could you give a easy example? thank you – pengwang Oct 19 '10 at 0:49 What Sephy is describing is to have this in your themes.xml: <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/Text_MenuItemText</item> Then define something like this in your styles.xml: <style name="Text_MenuItemText"> <item name="android:textSize">12dp</item> <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item> </style> That's as easy as it gets. Was that what you meant? Deeper options-menu customization isn't easy at all, but I intend to post a blog article about it soon. – Tenacious Nov 26 '10 at 8:03 feedback

up vote 0 down vote

The short answer is YES. lucky you! To do so, you need to override some styles of the Android default styles : First, look at the definition of the themes in Android : <style name="Theme.IconMenu"> <!-- Menu/item attributes --> <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item</item> <item name="android:itemBackground">@android:drawable/menu_selector</item> <item name="android:itemIconDisabledAlpha">?android:attr/disabledAlpha</item> <item name="android:horizontalDivider">@android:drawable/divider_horizontal_bright</item> <item name="android:verticalDivider">@android:drawable/divider_vertical_bright</item> <item name="android:windowAnimationStyle">@android:style/Animation.OptionsPanel</item> <item name="android:moreIcon">@android:drawable/ic_menu_more</item> <item name="android:background">@null</item> </style> So, the appearance of the text in the menu is in@android:style/TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item Now, in the definition of the styles : <style name="TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item" parent="TextAppearance.Small"> <item name="android:textColor">?textColorPrimaryInverse</item> </style> So now we have the name of the color in question, if you look in the color folder of the resources of the system : <selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="@android:color/bright_foreground_light_disabled" /> <item android:state_window_focused="false" android:color="@android:color/bright_foreground_light" /> <item android:state_pressed="true" android:color="@android:color/bright_foreground_light" /> <item android:state_selected="true" android:color="@android:color/bright_foreground_light" /> <item android:color="@android:color/bright_foreground_light" /> <!--  not selected --> </selector> Finally, here is what you need to do : Override "TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item" and create your own style. Then link it to your own selector to make it the way you want. Hope this helps you. Good luck! link|improve this answer answered Aug 19 '10 at 9:10 Sephy 7,61563655

Thanks for replying. I have done what you suggested but it do not change the color of menu item – sunil Aug 26 '10 at 10:29 Actually, I just realized by reading more of the menu stuff that it is much more complicated than I thought If you don't want to create your own full custom menu... This will need some more reading for me, I'll keep you posted here if i find more. – Sephy Aug 26 '10 at 19:42 It is not possible to override "TextAppearance.Widget.IconMenu.Item". – peceps Jul 1 '11 at 11:11 feedback

up vote 0 down vote

Thanks for the code example. I had to modify it go get it to work with a context menu. This is my solution.     static final Class<?>[] constructorSignature = new Class[] {Context.class, AttributeSet.class}; class MenuColorFix implements LayoutInflater.Factory {     public View onCreateView(String name, Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {         if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("com.android.internal.view.menu.ListMenuItemView")) {             try {                 Class<? extends ViewGroup> clazz = context.getClassLoader().loadClass(name).asSubclass(ViewGroup.class);                 Constructor<? extends ViewGroup> constructor = clazz.getConstructor(constructorSignature);                 final ViewGroup view = constructor.newInstance(new Object[]{context,attrs});                 new Handler().post(new Runnable() {                     public void run() {                         try {                             view.setBackgroundColor(Color.BLACK);                             List<View> children = getAllChildren(view);                             for(int i = 0; i< children.size(); i++) {                                 View child = children.get(i);                                 if ( child instanceof TextView ) {                                     ((TextView)child).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);                                 }                             }                         }                         catch (Exception e) {                             Log.i(TAG, "Caught Exception!",e);                         }                     }                 });                 return view;             }             catch (Exception e) {                 Log.i(TAG, "Caught Exception!",e);             }         }         return null;     }       } public List<View> getAllChildren(ViewGroup vg) {     ArrayList<View> result = new ArrayList<View>();     for ( int i = 0; i < vg.getChildCount(); i++ ) {         View child = vg.getChildAt(i);         if ( child instanceof ViewGroup) {             result.addAll(getAllChildren((ViewGroup)child));         }         else {             result.add(child);         }     }     return result; } @Override public void onCreateContextMenu(ContextMenu menu, View v, ContextMenuInfo menuInfo) {     LayoutInflater lInflater = getLayoutInflater();     if ( lInflater.getFactory() == null ) {         lInflater.setFactory(new MenuColorFix());     }     super.onCreateContextMenu(menu, v, menuInfo);     MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();     inflater.inflate(R.menu.myMenu, menu); } For me this works with Android 1.6, 2.03 and 4.03. link|improve this answer edited May 22 at 12:26 answered May 22 at 12:20 Michael Vogl 12

If you're doing the above then you should just look at using Marcus Wolschon solution. Much simpler.– chubbard Jun 6 at 16:40 Was this post useful to you?