Question

For example, if I set the background color to be #FF0000, I expect a bright red. However, I’m getting a dark red. If I set the background to #FFFFFF, I get gray instead of white.

I noticed that if I switch the theme for the application from dark to light, then all of the colors start showing up lighter than what I expect, so red goes to a washed out red, and black goes to gray.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

More info: here’s my layout:

(I’m trying to change the background of the TextView from black to white when it’s clicked.)

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

    <ListView android:id="@+id/wordList"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="1.0" />

    <TextView android:id="@+id/addButton"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:padding="10dp"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        android:gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:background="@color/black"
        android:text="@string/add_button"
        android:textColor="@color/white"
        android:clickable="true"/>  

</LinearLayout>

Answer 1

You are missing the alpha channel. The colors are in the format #AARRGGBB where AA is the transparency. For bright opaque red you should try #FFFF0000.