Question

In several android styling tutorials parent style elements are used that i can not find in the android.R.style.* styles (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/R.style.html).

A few examples are from the http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/04/customizing-action-bar.html action bar article. Nick uses parent styles like:

<style name="MyDropDownNav" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.Spinner.DropDown.ActionBar">
...
</style>

or

<style name="MyActionBarTabStyle" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBarView_TabView">
...
</style>

Where do these parent styles come from? Is it possible to list all available parent styles?

Thanks.

Answer 1

As stated in the “Applying Styles and Themes” article:

The Android platform provides a large collection of styles and themes
that you can use in your applications. You can find a reference of all
available styles in the R.style class. To use the styles listed here,
replace all underscores in the style name with a period. For example,
you can apply the Theme_NoTitleBar theme with
"@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar".

The R.style reference, however, is not well documented and does not
thoroughly describe the styles, so viewing the actual source code for
these styles and themes will give you a better understanding of what
style properties each one provides. For a better reference to the
Android styles and themes, see the following source code:

• Android Styles (styles.xml)
• Android Themes (themes.xml)

These files will help you learn through example. For instance, in the
Android themes source code, you’ll find a declaration for <style
name="Theme.Dialog">. In this definition, you’ll see all of the
properties that are used to style dialogs that are used by the Android
framework.