I often encounter apps as I add Open Event format support that don’t follow current design guidelines. Earlier styling an app was a tough task as the color and behaviour of the views needed to be defined separately. But now as we move forward to advanced styling methods we can easily style our app.

I recently worked on upgrading the user interface of Giraffe app after adding our Open Event support. See the repository to view the code for more reference. Here I follow the same procedure to upgrade the user interface.

First we add essential libraries to move with our material aesthetic. The Appcompat library provides backward compatibility.

//Essential Google libraries
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:25.3.1'
compile 'com.android.support:design:25.3.1

Then we define an XML file in the values folder for the style of the app which we get through Appcompat library. We could inherit same style in the entire app or separate style for the particular activity.

<resources>

   <!-- Base application theme. -->
   <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
       <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
       <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
       <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
       <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
   </style>


   <style name="AlertDialogCustom" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog.Alert">
       <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
       <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
   </style>

</resources>

So now we can see the views made following the same color scheme and behaviour throughout the app following current design guidelines without any particular manipulation to each of them.

Tip: Don’t define values of colors separately for different views. Define them in colors.xml to use them everywhere. It becomes easier then to change in future if needed.

The app now uses Action Bar for the frequently used operations unlike the custom layout that was made earlier.

This is how Action Bar is implemented,

First declare the action bar in XML layout,

Tip: Define color of the bar two shades lighter than the status bar.

 <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
             android:layout_width="match_parent"
             android:layout_height="wrap_content"
             android:background="@android:color/transparent"
             android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
             <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar

                 xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"         
                 android:id="@+id/toolbar_options"
                 android:layout_width="match_parent"
                 android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
                 android:background="@color/colorPrimary"
                 app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark">
                 
                 <TextView
                     android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                     android:text="@string/options"
                     android:textColor="@color/colorAccent"
                     android:textSize="20sp" />
              </android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

</android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

Then you can use the action bar in the activity, use onCreateOptionsMenu() method to inflate options in the toolbar.

@Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        ...

        setTitle("");
        title = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.titlebar);
        Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar_main);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

        ...
    }

The menu that needs to be inflated will be like this for two button at the right end of the action bar for bookmarks and filter respectively,

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
     <item
        android:id = "@+id/action_bookmark"
        android:icon = "@drawable/ic_bookmark"
        android:menuCategory = "secondary"
        android:title = "Bookmark"
        app:showAsAction = "ifRoom" />
 
     <item
         android:id = "@+id/action_filter"
         android:icon = "@drawable/ic_filter"
         android:menuCategory = "secondary"
         android:title = "Filter"
         app:showAsAction = "ifRoom" />
</menu>

To adapt the declared style further, Alert Dialogs are also modified to match the app’s theme, it’s style is defined along with the app’s style. See below

AlertDialog.Builder noFeedBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(context,R.style.AlertDialogCustom);
            noFeedBuilder.setMessage(R.string.main_no_feed_text)
                    .setTitle(R.string.main_no_feed_title)
                    .setPositiveButton(R.string.common_yes, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                  ...
            noFeedBuilder.show();

Here is an example of improvement, before and after we update the user interface and aesthetic of app in easy steps defined,

See this for all the changes made to step up the user interface of the app.

References:

• Google Android Developement Documentation – https://developer.android.com/design/material/index.html
• Google Android Development Documentation – https://material.io/guidelines/style/color.html