Overflow menu row customization

Question

I am wanting to customise the rows of the overflow menu in the action bar. I found a great blog post explaining how to go about doing this, which seem simple enough. The link is below. http://scriptedpapers.com/2014/08/12/android-action-bar-overflow-menu-customization/

I am specifically wanting to change the background colour of the overflow menu rows so the theme that I am using looks like the following:

<resources>

<!--the theme applied to the application or activity -->
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/CustomActionBar</item>
    <item name="android:homeAsUpIndicator">@drawable/upcaret</item>
    <item name="android:actionOverflowButtonStyle">@style/CustomOverflowButton</item>
    <item name="android:popupMenuStyle">@style/PopupMenu</item>
</style>

<!--ActionBar style -->
<style name="CustomActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:background">@color/customBlue</item>
</style>
<style name="CustomOverflowButton" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionButton.Overflow">
    <item name="android:src">@drawable/overflowbutton</item>
</style>
<style name="PopupMenu" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.ListPopupWindow">
    <item name="android:popupBackground">@color/customBlue</item>
</style>

Applying this theme to the application, the background colour of the overflow menu remains the same colour as the default for Holo.Light.DarkActionBar, despite setting a custom popupMenuStyle.

For my project, the minSdkVersion is 15 and targetSdkVersion is 19.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

JDJ · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-05 02:52:56Z

1

Try specifying a 9-patch drawable instead of a color.

Go here and choose the color that you want your rows to be by selecting a color from the "Popup color" drop-down.

The only file you need from the zip is menu_dropdown_panel.9.png.

Make sure to place this file in your various drawable-xxxx folders.

Then use it like this:

<style name="PopupMenu" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.ListPopupWindow">
    <item name="android:popupBackground">@drawable/menu_dropdown_panel</item>
</style>

If it still doesn't work, add this to the above:

Add this line to your main theme (CustomActionBarTheme):

<item name="android:actionBarWidgetTheme">@style/PopupWrapper</item>

Then add this:

<style name="PopupWrapper" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo">
    <item name="android:popupMenuStyle">@style/PopupMenu</item>
</style>

edited Jan 5, 2015 at 2:52

answered Jan 5, 2015 at 2:00

JDJ

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6 Comments

coldbuffet Over a year ago

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it out, but it still doesn't seem to change the overflow menu row background. I'm completely stumped..

coldbuffet Over a year ago

Yep, inside the <application> tags I provide the attribute android:theme="@style/CustomActionBarTheme". Also, the other style customisations that I set seem to be working except for the overflow menu background.

JDJ Over a year ago

Temporarily change the parent theme to android:Theme.Holo.Light and see if that works

coldbuffet Over a year ago

Wow, that did the trick... thank you very much JDJ. I wonder why using Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar prevents the background color to be changed?

JDJ Over a year ago

Glad it worked! I don't think it was working because Dark themes use an additional wrapper for popup menus. If you still want to use Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar, you will probably have to use the method that I added to the end of the answer.

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