Question

I have an Android library MyLib containing everything I need for my app (targeting Android 2.2). This library has an XML resource:

drawable/main_background.xml

In my Application MyApp project I reference MyLib. Here I want to override specific resources (i.e. branding). So I added a background image in MyApp:

drawable/main_background.png

Eclipse keeps giving me this error:

[com.mycom.mylib.myapp] res\drawable\main_background.xml:0: error: Resource entry main_background is already defined.
[com.mycom.mylib.myapp] res\drawable\main_background.png:0: Originally defined here.

How can I override the resource in the library project?

Answer 1

You cannot simply override resource ID (it’s the resource ID you are overriding, not the actual file) with a file with different extension in Android SDK. However, you can do the trick by putting in your project xml file with the same name (main_background.xml) and fill it in a proper way to display your new file (main_background.png), which you need to rename earlier. All syntax you need is descibed here:

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource.html

, in your case it could be simply (assuming you put this in your non-library project as main_background.xml, and you have your new png as main_background_new.png):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bitmap
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:src="@drawable/main_background_new" />

With above solution, you could refer to @drawable/main_background from your project and it should use your file included with that project, instead of a library one.