Investigate ActionBar Sherlock: http://actionbarsherlock.com/
You can just use the Themes you don't need to use the back-ported ActionBar as well. On Thursday, October 11, 2012 7:14:09 PM UTC+1, Nathan wrote: > > I've been thinking about themes. I have read and watched a lot of how > themes are great and why you should do them, but don't yet have a > methodical way of doing them. And by doing it, I actually mean "give proper > instructions to a designer". I am not the right person to do it. Of course, > maybe I am overcomplicating it and I could get this all done in half a day. > > At this point, I have incorporated ActionBarSherlock into an app. I am > confident that the app follows Android Design Guidelines - from the > actionbar up, that is. Anything below the actionbar follows the Holo Theme > on 4x and looks inconsistent on 2.x. > > Here are the guidelines from Android Design. > > - Pick the system theme that best matches the needs and design > aesthetics for your app. > > Ok, I choose the Holo Dark Theme. But wait, that is only guaranteed to be > there for 4.0 and above. To my knowledge there is no compatibility library > for the Holo Themes. > > - If your desire is to have a more distinct look for your app, > > Maybe, but I need to know the cost/benefit. Usability is a much higher > priority than "distinct look". > > - using one of the system themes as a starting point for your > customizations is a good idea. The system themes provide a solid > foundation > on top of which you can selectively implement your own visual stylings. > > Now this makes a lot of sense. But, wait, you can't do that, because the > system themes are only guaranteed on 4x and above. If I wanted my theme to > have predictable results on 2x, I think there are many more steps. > > If I look at, for example. > \platforms\android-16\data > It contains 5646 files and 66.4 Megabytes. > Not all of that is the Holo theme(s) of course. Probably only a very small > subset. For reference, ActionBarSherlock uses about .37 Meg and 277 files > to make the actionbar look consistent. > > So if I wanted just have my app use the Holo Dark theme all the way > through 2.x, I think I would have to do this. > > 1. Go through the themes.xml and extract all the attributes of Holo Dark. > 2. Go through styles.xml and extract all the attributes referenced by > those attributes in #1. > 3. Go through the drawables folder to extract the xml files reference by > one and two. > 4. Extract all the png files and .9.png files that are referenced by > anything above. > > If I want the truly distinct look, then I would add the additional steps. > 5. Give all the files above to a designer to edit the images and > attributes until they all look distinct. > 6. Give them some way to test it if they don't happen to be a developer. > > Am I on the right track here? > > Has anyone already done steps 1-4? How many files, lines of xml, were > there? (I'll hire you by the way). At this point in the industry, I don't > see there is a way to buy an Android App Theme the way you can buy a > Wordpress theme, or hire an Android Designer the way you could probably > hire an iPhone Designer ( no personal experience). > > All of this may encourage me to not over invest in making 2.x look good. > While 2.x is still about 60% of total users, two thirds of *new installs* > are already using 4.x. Of course, that makes me vulnerable if the Android > Design Police happen to try my app on 2.x. > > Nathan > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
