Question

I have a drawable that i use as a Background for a LinearLayout. I would like to change the color of this Shape in runtime. I have tried using several methods.. but none work.

I’ve followed the approach described here: http://www.anddev.org/android-2d-3d-graphics-opengl-problems-f55/change-shape-drawable-solid-color-t16798.html

But have the same problem… it doesnt crashes.. but the color doesnt change!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <solid android:color="#00A6C1" />
    <corners android:radius="@dimen/square_corners" />
</shape>

Snippet of code:

GradientDrawable drawable = (GradientDrawable) activity.getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.blue_square_shape);


int color = ((Application) getApplication()).getColor();
drawable.setColor(color);

block.findViewById(R.id.blockSquare).setBackgroundDrawable(drawable);

findViewById(R.id.blockSquare).postInvalidate();

Any clue? I’ve passed the whole day googling… and it’s getting pretty annoying…

UPDATE:

When i try to do the same to this Shape:

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/shape" android:shape="rectangle">
    <gradient android:startColor="#1FBCCF" android:endColor="#06A4C1"
        android:angle="270" />
    <corners android:topLeftRadius="@dimen/footer_corners"
        android:topRightRadius="@dimen/footer_corners" />
</shape>

The color turns to black… what i guess tells it can be changed…

Answer 1

See if something similar to this works for you:

TextView tv2 = (TextView) rl.findViewById(R.id.toggle_indicator);
/* Refer to http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/drawable/GradientDrawable.html#mutate()
to understand why we need to mutate the GradientDrawable*/
GradientDrawable sd = (GradientDrawable) tv2.getBackground().mutate();
sd.setColor(0xff999999);
sd.invalidateSelf();

In my case I have a TextView which has a ShapeDrawable as a background. I wanted to change its color and managed to make this work. Inexplicably, tv2.getBackground() returns a GradientDrawable instead of a ShapeDrawable — this has been reported elsewhere as well.

Edit: About the color, try setting an alpha value of 0xff. If you notice, even in my code above the setColor() function takes an extra hex value apart from the regular RGB hex value. This is for Alpha/Opacity. If this is set to 0x00 the Drawable will have a black color, irrespective of the RGB (assuming that your background color is black). 0x00 is a completely transparent object & 0xff is a completely opaque object.