Question

I’m currently developing an app running on android api 4 (1.6) and above.
However, it looks very good on android 4 (with it’s new button styles) but it looks stupid on all platforms below, including 1.6 (The button style there is awkward).

How can I make the buttons view on all platforms equally?
Can I copy the android 4 button style to my project to solve this issue?
If yes, where may I find this style.

This is what it should look like everywhere:

Answer 1

Yes you can do that. All you need to do is to create a custom background and copy some files from your SDK directory.

Put this as an xml drawable in your drawables folder. I called it btn_start_activity.xml. But you can give it any name you want.

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_window_focused="false" android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_normal_holo_dark" />
    <item android:state_window_focused="false" android:state_enabled="false"
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_disabled_holo_dark" />
    <item android:state_pressed="true" 
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_pressed_holo_dark" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_focused_holo_dark" />
    <item android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_normal_holo_dark" />
    <item android:state_focused="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_disabled_focused_holo_dark" />
    <item
         android:drawable="@drawable/btn_default_disabled_holo_dark" />
</selector>

Now Eclipse will complain that it can’t find the files. You need to copy them from sdk.dir/platforms/android-15/data/res/drawable-xxx to your project. Take care that you copy the ldpi, mdpi, hdpi and xhdpi versions.

Now create an xml file in your res/color folder. I assigned the name: primary_text_btn_start.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_enabled="false" android:color="@color/bright_foreground_disabled_holo_dark"/>
    <item android:state_window_focused="false" android:color="@color/bright_foreground_holo_dark"/>
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:color="@color/bright_foreground_holo_dark"/>
    <item android:state_selected="true" android:color="@color/bright_foreground_holo_dark"/>
    <item android:state_activated="true" android:color="@color/bright_foreground_holo_dark"/>
    <item android:color="@color/bright_foreground_holo_dark"/> <!-- not selected -->
</selector>

Now add the missing color values to your colors.xml in res/values.

<color name="bright_foreground_disabled_holo_dark">#ff4c4c4c</color>
<color name="bright_foreground_holo_dark">#fff3f3f3</color>

Then apply the new style to you buttons

android:background="@drawable/btn_start_activity"
android:textColor="@color/primary_text_btn_start"