Question

I have finished coding the logic of my application, which contains a GridView, a few TextViews and a few dialogs.

I now wish to style these views, as the default theme is somewhat ugly.

I’ve had a look at the provided Android themes, and tried out a few of them but they didn’t really offer much.
Therefore, I’m wondering if there are any resources available that would allow me to quickly apply a pre-defined thene and I could then tweak it accordingly?
The ability to switch between a few stylish themes to get ideas and tweak them would be very beneficial as I am not the most graphical-minded.

Thanks

Answer 1

Here what I do to style my dialogs differently. I first define a shape which gives be a gradient filled background and rounded edges:

filled_roundededges_box.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:shape="rectangle" >
    <gradient 
        android:startColor="#353535"
        android:endColor="#222222"
        android:angle="90" />
<stroke android:width="2dp" android:color="#808080"/>
<corners android:radius="5dp" />
<padding android:left="10dp" android:top="10dp"
    android:right="10dp" android:bottom="10dp" />
</shape>

I then create a style using this shape:

styles.xml:

<style name="AppCustomDialog" parent="android:style/Theme.Dialog">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/filled_roundededges_box</item>
    <item name="android:windowIsFloating">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowSoftInputMode">stateVisible</item>
</style>

Finally I apply this style to my button:

<ImageButton
        android:id="@+id/addedit_btnPrev"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|right"
        android:src="@drawable/left"
        style="@style/App_ButtonStyle" />

Alternatively you can apply the style as a theme to the who app using:

<application
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher_noteit1"
    android:label="@string/app_name" 
    android:theme="@style/App_Theme"
    android:name="NoteItApplication" 
    android:debuggable="true">