How to use and style new AlertDialog from appCompat 22.1 and above

Question

I am trying to migrate from default android AlertDialog to the new one included in appCompat-22.1 So far I understand you only have to import android.support.v7.app.AlertDialog package in order to use it.

But how can I style it? For example change the positive/negative button colors, title color, message color and background color?

Answer 1

When creating the AlertDialog you can set a theme to use.

Example - Creating the Dialog

AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this, R.style.MyAlertDialogStyle);
builder.setTitle("AppCompatDialog");
builder.setMessage("Lorem ipsum dolor...");
builder.setPositiveButton("OK", null);
builder.setNegativeButton("Cancel", null);
builder.show();

styles.xml - Custom style

<style name="MyAlertDialogStyle" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog.Alert">
    <!-- Used for the buttons -->
    <item name="colorAccent">#FFC107</item>
    <!-- Used for the title and text -->
    <item name="android:textColorPrimary">#FFFFFF</item>
    <!-- Used for the background -->
    <item name="android:background">#4CAF50</item>
</style>

Result

Edit

In order to change the Appearance of the Title, you can do the following. First add a new style:

<style name="MyTitleTextStyle">
    <item name="android:textColor">#FFEB3B</item>
    <item name="android:textAppearance">@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Title</item>
</style>

afterwards simply reference this style in your MyAlertDialogStyle:

<style name="MyAlertDialogStyle" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog.Alert">
    ...
    <item name="android:windowTitleStyle">@style/MyTitleTextStyle</item>
</style>

This way you can define a different textColor for the message via android:textColorPrimary and a different for the title via the style.