How to change the Text color of Menu item in Android

Question

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

User · Answer

Override public void onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu  MenuInflater inflater        inflater inflate R menu search  menu         MenuItem myActionMenuItem   menu findItem  R id action search       SearchView searchView    SearchView  myActionMenuItem getActionView         EditText searchEditText    EditText  searchView findViewById android support v7 appcompat R id search src text       searchEditText setTextColor Color WHITE     You color here

User · Answer

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       lt style name  Theme IconMenu  gt   lt  -- Menu item attributes -- gt   lt item name  android itemTextAppearance  gt  android style TextAppearance Widget IconMenu Item lt  item gt   lt item name  android itemBackground  gt  android drawable menu selector lt  item gt   lt item name  android itemIconDisabledAlpha  gt  android attr disabledAlpha lt  item gt   lt item name  android horizontalDivider  gt  android drawable divider horizontal bright lt  item gt   lt item name  android verticalDivider  gt  android drawable divider vertical bright lt  item gt   lt item name  android windowAnimationStyle  gt  android style Animation OptionsPanel lt  item gt   lt item name  android moreIcon  gt  android drawable ic menu more lt  item gt   lt item name  android background  gt  null lt  item gt   lt  style gt    So  the appearance of the text in the menu is in  android style TextAppearance Widget IconMenu Item Now  in the definition of the styles       lt style name  TextAppearance Widget IconMenu Item  parent  TextAppearance Small  gt   lt item name  android textColor  gt  textColorPrimaryInverse lt  item gt   lt  style gt    So now we have the name of the color in question  if you look in the color folder of the resources of the system       lt selector xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android  gt   lt item android state enabled  false  android color   android color bright foreground light disabled    gt    lt item android state window focused  false  android color   android color bright foreground light    gt    lt item android state pressed  true  android color   android color bright foreground light    gt    lt item android state selected  true  android color   android color bright foreground light    gt    lt item android color   android color bright foreground light    gt    lt  --  not selected -- gt    lt  selector gt    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

User · Answer

I went about it programmatically like this   public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu        getMenuInflater   inflate R menu changeip card menu  menu        for int i   0  i  lt  menu size    i              MenuItem item   menu getItem i           SpannableString spanString   new SpannableString menu getItem i  getTitle   toString             spanString setSpan new ForegroundColorSpan Color BLACK   0      spanString length    0     fix the color to white         item setTitle spanString             return true

User · Answer

Simply just go to Values - styles and inside styles and type your color

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Adding this into my styles xml worked for me    lt item name  android textColorPrimary  gt  android attr textColorPrimaryInverse lt  item gt

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My situation was settings text color in the options menu  main app menu showed on menu button press    Tested in API 16 with appcompat-v7-27 0 2 library  AppCompatActivity for MainActivity and AppCompat theme for the application in AndroidManifest xml   styles xml    lt style name  AppTheme  parent  Theme AppCompat Light DarkActionBar  gt     lt item name  actionBarPopupTheme  gt  style PopupTheme lt  item gt   lt  style gt    lt style name  PopupTheme  parent   style ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light  gt     lt item name  android textColorSecondary  gt  f00 lt  item gt   lt  style gt    Don t know if that textColorSecondary affects other elements but it controls the menu text color     I searched some examples on the topic but all ready-to-use snippets didn t work   So I wanted to investigate it with the source code for the appcompat-v7 library  specifically with the res folder of the  aar package    Though in my case I used Eclipse with exploded  aar dependencies  So I could change the default styles and check the results  Don t know how to explode the libraries to use with Gradle or Android Studio directly  It deserves another thread of investigation   So my purpose was so find which color in the res values values xml file is used for the menu text  I was almost sure the color was there     I opened that file  then duplicated all colors  put them below the default ones to override them and assigned  f00 value to all of them  Start the app  Many elements had red background or text color  And the menu items too  That was what I needed  Removing my added colors by blocks of 5-10 lines I ended with the secondary text default material light color item  Searching that name in the files within the res folder  or better within res colors  I found only one occurrence in the color abc secondary text material light xml file  I used Sublime Text for these operations so it s easier to find thing I need   Back to the values xml 8 usages were found for the  color abc secondary text material light  It was a Light theme so 4 left in 2 themes  Base ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light and Platform AppCompat Light  The first theme was a child of the second one so there were only 2 attributes with that color resource  android textColorSecondary and android textColorTertiaryin the Base ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light  Changing their values directly in the values xml and running the app I found that the final correct attribute was android textColorSecondary  Next I needed a theme or another attribute so I could change it in my app s style xml  because my theme had as the parent the Theme AppCompat Light and not the ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light   I searched in the same file for the Base ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light  It had a child ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light  Searching for the ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light I found its usage in the Base Theme AppCompat Light DarkActionBar theme as the actionBarPopupTheme attribute value  My app s theme Theme AppCompat Light DarkActionBar was a child of the found Base Theme AppCompat Light DarkActionBar so I could use that attribute in my styles xml without problems  As it s seen in the example code above I created a child theme from the mentioned ThemeOverlay AppCompat Light and changed the android textColorSecondary attribute

User · Answer

You can change the color of the MenuItem text easily by using SpannableString instead of String    Override public void onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu  MenuInflater inflater        inflater inflate R menu your menu  menu        int positionOfMenuItem   0     or whatever        MenuItem item   menu getItem positionOfMenuItem       SpannableString s   new SpannableString  My red MenuItem        s setSpan new ForegroundColorSpan Color RED   0  s length    0       item setTitle s

User · Answer

Simply add this to your theme   lt style name  AppTheme  parent  Theme AppCompat Light NoActionBar  gt           lt item name  android itemTextAppearance  gt  style AppTheme ItemTextStyle lt  item gt   lt  style gt    lt style name  AppTheme ItemTextStyle  parent   android style TextAppearance Widget IconMenu Item  gt           lt item name  android textColor  gt  color orange 500 lt  item gt   lt  style gt    Tested on API 21

User · Answer

For changing the text color  you can just set a custom view for the MenuItem  and then you can define the color for the text  Sample Code   MenuItem setActionView

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One simple line in your theme      lt item name  android actionMenuTextColor  gt  color your color lt  item gt

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SIMPLEST way to make custom menu color for single toolbar  not for AppTheme       lt android support design widget AppBarLayout         android layout width  match parent          android layout height  wrap content          android theme   style AppTheme AppBarOverlay MenuBlue  gt           lt android support v7 widget Toolbar             android id    id toolbar              android layout width  match parent              android layout height   attr actionBarSize   gt       lt  android support design widget AppBarLayout gt    usual toolbar on styles xml   lt style name  AppTheme AppBarOverlay  parent  ThemeOverlay AppCompat Dark ActionBar   gt    our custom toolbar style   lt style name  AppTheme AppBarOverlay MenuBlue  gt       lt item name  actionMenuTextColor  gt  color blue lt  item gt   lt  style gt

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

try this code        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

User · Answer

I used the html tag to change a single item s text colour when the menu item is inflated  Hope it would be helpful   public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu           Inflate the menu  this adds items to the action bar if it is present      getMenuInflater   inflate R menu menu main  menu       menu findItem R id main settings  setTitle Html fromHtml   lt font color   ff3824  gt Settings lt  font gt          return true

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If you are using the new Toolbar  with the theme Theme AppCompat Light NoActionBar  you can style it in the following way     lt style name  ToolbarTheme  parent  Theme AppCompat Light NoActionBar  gt       lt item name  android textColorPrimary  gt  color my color1 lt  item gt       lt item name  android textColorSecondary  gt  color my color2 lt  item gt       lt item name  android textColor  gt  color my color3 lt  item gt    lt  style gt     According to the results I got  android textColorPrimary is the text color displaying the name of your activity  which is the primary text of the toolbar   android textColorSecondary is the text color for subtitle and more options  3 dot  button   Yes  it changed its color according to this property    android textColor is the color for all other text including the menu   Finally set the theme to the Toolbar   lt android support v7 widget Toolbar xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns app  http   schemas android com apk res-auto      app theme   style ToolbarTheme      android layout height  wrap content      android layout width  match parent      android minHeight   attr actionBarSize   gt

User · Answer

If you are using menu as  lt android support design widget NavigationView   gt  then just add below line in NavigationView    app itemTextColor  your color    Also available colorTint for icon  it will override color for your icon as well  For that you have to add below line   app itemIconTint  your color    Example     lt android support design widget NavigationView         android id    id nav view          android layout width  wrap content          android layout height  match parent          android layout gravity  start           app itemTextColor   color color white          app itemIconTint   color color white           android background   color colorPrimary          android fitsSystemWindows  true          app headerLayout   layout nav header main          app menu   menu activity main drawer   gt    Hope it will help you

User · Answer

Thanks to max musterman  this is the solution I got to work in level 22   public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu        getMenuInflater   inflate R menu menu main  menu       SearchManager searchManager    SearchManager  getSystemService Context SEARCH SERVICE       MenuItem searchMenuItem   menu findItem R id search       SearchView searchView    SearchView  searchMenuItem getActionView        searchView setSearchableInfo searchManager getSearchableInfo getComponentName          searchView setSubmitButtonEnabled true       searchView setOnQueryTextListener this       setMenuTextColor menu  R id displaySummary  R string show summary       setMenuTextColor menu  R id about  R string text about       setMenuTextColor menu  R id importExport  R string import export       setMenuTextColor menu  R id preferences  R string settings       return true     private void setMenuTextColor Menu menu  int menuResource  int menuTextResource        MenuItem item   menu findItem menuResource       SpannableString s   new SpannableString getString menuTextResource        s setSpan new ForegroundColorSpan Color BLACK   0  s length    0       item setTitle s       The hardcoded Color BLACK could become an additional parameter to the setMenuTextColor method  Also  I only used this for menu items which were android showAsAction  never

User · Answer

It seems that an     lt item name  android itemTextAppearance  gt  style myCustomMenuTextAppearance lt  item gt    in my theme and      lt style name  myCustomMenuTextAppearance  parent   android style TextAppearance Widget IconMenu Item  gt           lt item name  android textColor  gt  android color primary text dark lt  item gt       lt  style gt    in styles xml change the style of list-items but not menu items

User · Answer

in Kotlin I wrote these extensions   fun MenuItem setTitleColor color  Int        val hexColor   Integer toHexString color  toUpperCase   substring 2      val html     lt font color    hexColor  gt  title lt  font gt       this title   html parseAsHtml                    Suppress  DEPRECATION                                                                           fun String parseAsHtml    Spanned                                                                    return if  Build VERSION SDK INT  gt   Build VERSION CODES N                                            Html fromHtml this  Html FROM HTML MODE LEGACY                                                 else                                                                                               Html fromHtml this                                                                                                                                                                              and used like this   menu findItem R id main settings  setTitleColor Color RED

User · Answer

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 lt   gt    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 lt   extends ViewGroup gt  clazz   context getClassLoader   loadClass name  asSubclass ViewGroup class                   Constructor lt   extends ViewGroup gt  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 lt View gt  children   getAllChildren view                               for int i   0  i lt  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 lt View gt  getAllChildren ViewGroup vg        ArrayList lt View gt  result   new ArrayList lt View gt         for   int i   0  i  lt  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

User · Answer

as you can see in this question you should    lt item name  android textColorPrimary  gt yourColor lt  item gt    Above code changes the text color of the menu action items for API    v21    lt item name  actionMenuTextColor  gt  android color holo green light lt  item gt    Above is the code for API  lt  v21

User · Answer

to change menu item text color use below code   lt style name  AppToolbar  parent  Theme AppCompat Light NoActionBar  gt   lt item name  android itemTextAppearance  gt  style menu item color lt  item gt   lt  style gt    where    lt style name  menu item color  gt   lt item name  android textColor  gt  color app font color lt  item gt   lt  style gt

User · Answer

You can set color programmatically   private static void setMenuTextColor final Context context  final Toolbar toolbar  final int menuResId  final int colorRes        toolbar post new Runnable              Override         public void run                 View settingsMenuItem    toolbar findViewById menuResId               if  settingsMenuItem instanceof TextView                    if  DEBUG                        Log i TAG   setMenuTextColor textview                                      TextView tv    TextView  settingsMenuItem                  tv setTextColor ContextCompat getColor context  colorRes                  else      you can ignore this branch  because usually there is not the situation                 Menu menu   toolbar getMenu                    MenuItem item   menu findItem menuResId                   SpannableString s   new SpannableString item getTitle                     s setSpan new ForegroundColorSpan ContextCompat getColor context  colorRes    0  s length    0                   item setTitle s

User · Answer

i found it Eureka     in your app theme    lt style name  AppTheme  parent  Theme AppCompat Light DarkActionBar  gt       lt item name  android actionBarStyle  gt  style ActionBarTheme lt  item gt       lt  -- backward compatibility -- gt                 lt item name  actionBarStyle  gt  style ActionBarTheme lt  item gt           lt  style gt    here is your action bar theme    lt style name  ActionBarTheme  parent   style Widget AppCompat Light ActionBar Solid Inverse  gt      lt item name  android background  gt  color actionbar bg color lt  item gt      lt item name  popupTheme  gt  style ActionBarPopupTheme lt  item     lt  -- backward compatibility -- gt      lt item name  background  gt  color actionbar bg color lt  item gt   lt  style gt    and here is your popup theme     lt style name  ActionBarPopupTheme  gt       lt item name  android textColor  gt  color menu text color lt  item gt       lt item name  android background  gt  color menu bg color lt  item gt    lt  style gt    Cheers

User · Answer

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    How to 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

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If you want to set color for an individual menu item  customizing a toolbar theme is not the right solution  To achieve this  you can make use of android actionLayout and an action view for the menu item   First create an XML layout file for the action view  In this example we use a button as an action view   menu button xml   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt androidx constraintlayout widget ConstraintLayout     xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns app  http   schemas android com apk res-auto      android layout width  match parent      android layout height  match parent  gt        lt Button         android id    id menuButton          android layout width  wrap content          android layout height  wrap content          android text  Done          android textColor   android attr colorAccent          style   android attr buttonBarButtonStyle          app layout constraintBottom toBottomOf  parent          app layout constraintEnd toEndOf  parent          app layout constraintTop toTopOf  parent    gt    lt  androidx constraintlayout widget ConstraintLayout gt    In the code snippet above  we use android textColor   android attr colorAccent  to customize button text color    Then in your XML layout file for the menu  include app actionLayout   layout menu button  as shown below   main menu xml   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt menu xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns app  http   schemas android com apk res-auto  gt        lt item         android id    id menuItem          android title            app actionLayout   layout menu button          app showAsAction  always   gt   lt  menu gt    Last override the onCreateOptionsMenu   method in your activity    Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu Menu menu        getMenuInflater   inflate R menu main menu  menu       MenuItem item   menu findItem R id menuItem       Button saveButton   item getActionView   findViewById R id menuButton       saveButton setOnClickListener view - gt               Do something             return true         or fragment    Override public void onCreateOptionsMenu  NonNull Menu menu   NonNull MenuInflater inflater       inflater inflate R menu main menu  menu       MenuItem item   menu findItem R id menuItem       Button saveButton   item getActionView   findViewById R id menuButton       button setOnClickListener view - gt               Do something             For more details on action views  see the Android developer guide

User · Answer

This is how you can color a specific menu item with color  works for all API levels   public static void setToolbarMenuItemTextColor final Toolbar toolbar                                                 final  ColorRes int color                                                  IdRes final int resId        if  toolbar    null            for  int i   0  i  lt  toolbar getChildCount    i                  final View view   toolbar getChildAt i               if  view instanceof ActionMenuView                    final ActionMenuView actionMenuView    ActionMenuView  view                     view children are accessible only after layout-ing                 actionMenuView post new Runnable                          Override                     public void run                             for  int j   0  j  lt  actionMenuView getChildCount    j                                  final View innerView   actionMenuView getChildAt j                               if  innerView instanceof ActionMenuItemView                                    final ActionMenuItemView itemView    ActionMenuItemView  innerView                                  if  resId    itemView getId                                          itemView setTextColor ContextCompat getColor toolbar getContext    color                                                                                                                                                                          By doing that you loose the background selector effect  so here is the code to apply a custom background selector to all of the menu item children   public static void setToolbarMenuItemsBackgroundSelector final Context context                                                           final Toolbar toolbar        if  toolbar    null            for  int i   0  i  lt  toolbar getChildCount    i                  final View view   toolbar getChildAt i               if  view instanceof ImageButton                       left toolbar icon  navigation  hamburger                       UiHelper setViewBackgroundSelector context  view                 else if  view instanceof ActionMenuView                    final ActionMenuView actionMenuView    ActionMenuView  view                      view children are accessible only after layout-ing                 actionMenuView post new Runnable                          Override                     public void run                             for  int j   0  j  lt  actionMenuView getChildCount    j                                  final View innerView   actionMenuView getChildAt j                               if  innerView instanceof ActionMenuItemView                                       text item views                                 final ActionMenuItemView itemView    ActionMenuItemView  innerView                                  UiHelper setViewBackgroundSelector context  itemView                                       icon item views                                 for  int k   0  k  lt  itemView getCompoundDrawables   length  k                                          if  itemView getCompoundDrawables   k     null                                            UiHelper setViewBackgroundSelector context  itemView                                                                                                                                                                                                               Here is the helper function also   public static void setViewBackgroundSelector  NonNull Context context   NonNull View itemView        int   attrs   new int   R attr selectableItemBackgroundBorderless       TypedArray ta   context obtainStyledAttributes attrs       Drawable drawable   ta getDrawable 0       ta recycle         ViewCompat setBackground itemView  drawable

User · Answer

I was using Material design and when the toolbar was on a small screen clicking the more options would show a blank white drop down box  To fix this I think added this to the main AppTheme   lt style name  quot AppTheme quot  parent  quot Theme MaterialComponents Light NoActionBar quot  gt       lt item name  quot android itemTextAppearance quot  gt  style menuItem lt  item gt   lt  style gt   And then created a style where you set the textColor for the menu items to your desired colour   lt style name  quot menuItem quot  parent  quot Widget AppCompat TextView SpinnerItem quot  gt       lt item name  quot android textColor quot  gt  color black lt  item gt   lt  style gt   The parent name Widget AppCompat TextView SpinnerItem I don t think that matters too much  it should still work

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

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