Create a custom button and make it the default style

Issue

I wanted to have a custom button look, so I followed the answer here https://stackoverflow.com/a/29848987/5616309

• I created xml files for the shape of the different states in app/res/drawable
• I created a xml file for the selector listing the files for all the states in app/res/drawable

This works, I can create a button with the right apparence if I change the property to refer to my custom button.

Now I wanted to make it default, so each button I add on the layout has the good look, automatically. So I changed then file app/res/values/style.xml to be like this (the lines referring to MyButton are the lines I added)

<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <item name="buttonStyle">@style/MyButton</item>
</style>

<style name="MyButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button">
    <item name="android:background">@drawable/my_button</item>
    <item name="android:gravity">center_vertical|center_horizontal</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFFFF</item>
    <item name="android:shadowColor">#FF000000</item>
    <item name="android:shadowDx">0</item>
    <item name="android:shadowDy">-1</item>
    <item name="android:shadowRadius">0.2</item>
    <item name="android:textSize">16dip</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
    <item name="android:focusable">true</item>
    <item name="android:clickable">true</item>
</style>

It doesn't work. I have to manually add style="@style/MyButton" to each button to make it work. What have I missed?

Solution

Make sure that your Activity is using the AppTheme theme. Add android:theme="@style/AppTheme" in section activity android:name=".MainActivity int manifest.

Answered By - Gabriele Mariotti