Question

I have a basic AutoCompleteTextView and an ArrayAdapter bound to it. Works great on Android 4.*, but on 2.3 whenever I scroll the dropdown the rows render in all black. If I tap on a row then the entire dropdown renders correctly.

In the below text, when the TextView is generated using inflate, if I set the background color to white (the commented out line) then it always shows white even when scrolling, but the tap selection effect (changing the row to the system tap a row color) doesn’t work then.

I am using actionbarsherlock here but I would hope that wouldn’t the the cause here. Any ideas?

Screenshot: https://i.stack.imgur.com/GfJ32.png

public class AutocompleteAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<String> implements Filterable {

public AutocompleteAdapter(Context context) {
    super(context, android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line);

    mInflater = LayoutInflater.from(context);
    mContext = context;
}

@Override
public View getView(final int position, final View convertView, final ViewGroup parent) {
    final TextView tv;
    if (convertView != null) {
        tv = (TextView) convertView;
    } else {
        tv = (TextView) mInflater.inflate(android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, parent, false);
        //tv.setBackgroundColor(tv.getResources().getColor(R.color.white));
    }

    tv.setText(getItem(position));
    return tv;
}
....

Answer 1

Its because your theme is dark..

If your theme in Manifest.xml is light.. ie,

    <application
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.Light.NoTitleBar.Workaround" >

I’ve get it to work by adding 2 xml files in values folder..

styles.xml

<resources>

    <style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Light" />
      <style name="AutoCompleteTextViewLight" parent="@android:style/Widget.AutoCompleteTextView">
    <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/primary_text_light</item>
    </style>
    <style name="Widget.DropDownItemLight" parent="@android:style/Widget.DropDownItem">
        <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/primary_text_light</item>
    </style>
</resources>

theme.xml

<resources>
    <style name="Theme.Light.NoTitleBar.Workaround" parent="@android:style/Theme.Light.NoTitleBar">
        <item name="android:autoCompleteTextViewStyle">@style/AutoCompleteTextViewLight</item>
        <item name="android:dropDownItemStyle">@style/Widget.DropDownItemLight</item>
    </style>
</resources>

I couldnt find another way…