Holo theme controls

[Nick]

I noticed ABS includes a ton of .png files for the holo theme widget/controls, devices that come with the Holo themes obviously wouldn't need developers to include their own PNGs for that, right? So I have to assume they are there to make your apps look like they're using the Holo theme on devices that do not have those themes. I tried setting up my app theme to Theme.Sherlock in the manifest and I tried setting my activity's theme to Theme_Sherlock programmatically in onCreate. Both ways the action bar does show up but all of my controls do not look like the holo theme controls, they look like I'm using Theme.Black

Do I have to write my own Themes that are based on the Sherlock theme to get the Holo look or should Sherlock theme look like Holo?

[Jake Wharton]

The images provide a standard look and feel to the action bar which will make it consistent across all platforms. The assets are pulled directly from the Android 4.0/4.0.3 source so it will look like the Holo action bar from ICS.

The themes will not affect any other styling of your application widgets so buttons will still look like the native buttons and text fields will still look like native text fields. Only the action bar will be themed. I do not advocate backporting the entire Holo theme to use in your application because it will only create an unnatural experience for the user.

One thing you can do, however, is take the styles for buttons and text fields from ICS and customize them a bit to create a branding of sorts for your application. This way you are afforded the clean and polished look of ICS but with a unique twist that will blend in seamlessly with your applications color scheme and feel.

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Jake Wharton
http://about.me/jakewharton