Animate change of view background color on Android

Question

How do you animate the change of background color of a view on Android?

For example:

I have a view with a red background color. The background color of the view changes to blue. How can I do a smooth transition between colors?

If this can't be done with views, an alternative will be welcome.

Answer 1

You can use new Property Animation Api for color animation:

int colorFrom = getResources().getColor(R.color.red);
int colorTo = getResources().getColor(R.color.blue);
ValueAnimator colorAnimation = ValueAnimator.ofObject(new ArgbEvaluator(), colorFrom, colorTo);
colorAnimation.setDuration(250); // milliseconds
colorAnimation.addUpdateListener(new AnimatorUpdateListener() {

    @Override
    public void onAnimationUpdate(ValueAnimator animator) {
        textView.setBackgroundColor((int) animator.getAnimatedValue());
    }

});
colorAnimation.start();

For backward compatibility with Android 2.x use Nine Old Androids library from Jake Wharton.

The getColor method was deprecated in Android M, so you have two choices:

• If you use the support library, you need to replace the getColor calls with:

  ContextCompat.getColor(this, R.color.red);
  

• if you don't use the support library, you need to replace the getColor calls with:

  getColor(R.color.red);