Is there a way to override Android's platform attribute value at the app level?

Issue

I have a custom viewholder class that gets a color from an attribute in the android namespace in the constructor:

int mDefaultPrimaryColor = GetColor(context, android.R.attr.colorPrimary);

....

public static int getColor(Context context, int attr)
{
    TypedArray ta = context.obtainStyledAttributes(new int[]{attr});
    int color = ta.getColor(0, 0);
    ta.recycle();
    return color;
}

Later on the bind method eventually sets the color:

someTextView.setTextColor(mDefaultPrimaryColor);

I would like to override the android.R.attr.colorPrimary value in my app through XML without modifying Java code so that the value is different than the one being set in the SDK.

I tried to override this value in my themes.xml:

<resources>
   <style name="MyAppTheme" parent="@android:Theme.DeviceDefault.NoActionBar">
       <item name="android:colorPrimary">@color/my_color</item>
   </style>
</resources>

However, the color I am seeing in the Android emulator is not the color I have set for my_color. Is there a way to override the android.R.attr.colorPrimary with a color I defined in my app? What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: The theme is already set in the manifest file. Updated the code snippet to be more exact.

Solution

Your code doesn't go quite far enough to get the color code. Try this:

// Extract the color attribute we are interested in.
TypedArray a = context.obtainStyledAttributes(new int[]{android.R.attr.colorPrimary});
// From the TypedArray retrive the value we want and default if it is not found.
int defaultColor = a.getColor(0, 0xFFFFFF);
// Make sure to recycle the TypedArray.
a.recycle();

Now in your theme/style, you can specify something like the following:

<item name="android:colorPrimary">@android:color/holo_blue_light</item>

which is

<!-- A light Holo shade of blue. Equivalent to #ff33b5e5. -->
<color name="holo_blue_light">#ff33b5e5</color>

You would, of course, have to apply this color as needed.

Answered By - Cheticamp