Android : Create your own attribute names in styles.xml

Question

I need some help, I've been browsing for a while, but none of the topic I've found could resolve my problem. Hope you'll help me !

Here we go : I have a custom view, let's call it CustomView. It has some custom attributes too, defined in an attrs.xml file, like below :

<declare-styleable name="CustomView">
    <attr name="customBackgroundColor" format="color"/>
    <attr name="customTextColor" format="color"/>
    <attr name="customWhatever" format="dimension"/>
</declare-styleable>

This view is part of a library I want to create so I can use it in multiple projects.

The funny part comes here : Actually, I'll use this view really often, so I want to define a style in styles.xml to define its property, so I don't have to go in every xml layout files where I use this view to edit its attributes. Something like this :

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <item name="customViewStyle">@style/myCustomViewStyle</item>
</style>

<style name="myCustomViewStyle" parent="CustomViewStyle">
    <item name="customBackgroundColor">@color/red</item>
    <item name="customTextColor">@color/blue</item>
    <item name="customWhatever">@dimen/someHeight</item>
</style>

So my question is : How do I define this "customViewStyle" key, and if it's possible, how to get informations from it ?

Bonus : I've been able to create this "customViewStyle" key by doing this :

<attr name="customViewStyle" format="reference"/>

But I haven't found yet how to exploit it.

Karakuri · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-04 15:47:49Z

2

How do I define this "customViewStyle" key?

<attr name="customViewStyle" format="reference"/>, outside of any <declare-styleable> tags.

But I haven't found yet how to exploit it.

Make a style that has the properties you want. You have already done that with MyCustomViewStyle entry in your post, but you've given it a parent style that doesn't exist (as far as I can tell). I would probably use `parent="android:Widget" unless something else is more appropriate.

I presume your custom view class already reads attributes from XML using TypedArray:

TypedArray a = context.obstainStyleAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.CustomView,
        R.attr.customViewStyle, 0);

Replace the last argument with your default style you just defined:

TypedArray a = context.obstainStyleAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.CustomView,
        R.attr.customViewStyle, R.style.MyCustomViewStyle);

answered Feb 4, 2016 at 15:47

Karakuri

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1 Comment

TCleard Over a year ago

"you've given it a parent style that doesn't exist" Yeah I know, I just wanted to show what I'd like my code to look like, but what you said next just did hat I wanted. You sir deserve a cookie ! Thanks bro, now I can go back to work !

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