Question

I’ve written a simple custom style in xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <style name="Light">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/text_light</item>
        <item name="android:background">@color/background_light</item>
    </style>
</resources>

However, when I apply it, the text color is correctly set for every element of the view, whereas the background color is not set for the whole screen, but only for the single views inside it (for example listviews, textviews, buttons).

This is the code I use to set the theme:

public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
    this.setTheme(R.android.Light);
    super.onCreate(icicle);

How can I change the background color for the whole layout?

Answer 1

<item name="android:windowBackground">@color/background_light</item>
<item name="android:colorBackground">@color/background_light</item>

Note that the color needs to supplied as a separate resource here because the android:windowBackground attribute only supports a reference to another resource; unlike android:colorBackground, it can not be given a color literal.

(quoted from http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/themes.html)