Get the background color of a button in android

Question

How do i get the background color of a button. In the xml i set the background color using ---- android:background = XXXXX now in the activity class how can i retrieve this value that it has ?

Restriction

Answer 1

Unfortunately I don't know how to retrieve the actual color.

It's easy to get this as a Drawable

Button button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.my_button);
Drawable buttonBackground = button.getBackground();

If you know this is a color then you can try

ColorDrawable buttonColor = (ColorDrawable) button.getBackground();

And if you're on Android 3.0+ you can get out the resource id of the color.

int colorId = buttonColor.getColor();

And compare this to your assigned colors, ie.

if (colorID == R.color.green) {
  log("color is green");
}

Wind

Are you sure getColor() gets the id? I think it gets the actual int value of the color (ie. 0xAARRGGBB). I tested this with "#00000001" and it returned 1. – Kurtzman

In my test I did button.setBackground(R.color.green) and then checked the response and it definitely wasn't the actual color id. I'd prefer a proper color integer so I can Color.red(int), Color.green(int), Color.blue(int) it. But in my test on Android 3.2, this wasn't the case. I'd guess that it's inconsistent, returning a color int, or resid, depending on context. – Wind

Hey, I am trying to do a task only if the background image of an image button is a certain drawable resource. How can I compare... I've tried if(buttonBackground.equals(@drawable/mydrawable)) but it doesn't work – Tutelage

I used this ((ColorDrawable) row.getBackground()).getColor() as (row.background as ColorDrawable).color but i faced with this error android.graphics.drawable.StateListDrawable cannot be cast to android.graphics.drawable.ColorDrawable – Caravel

Answer 2

private Bitmap mBitmap;
private Canvas mCanvas;
private Rect mBounds;

public void initIfNeeded() {
  if(mBitmap == null) {
    mBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(1,1, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
    mCanvas = new Canvas(mBitmap);
    mBounds = new Rect();
  }
}

public int getBackgroundColor(View view) {
  // The actual color, not the id.
  int color = Color.BLACK;

  if(view.getBackground() instanceof ColorDrawable) {
    if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
      initIfNeeded();

      // If the ColorDrawable makes use of its bounds in the draw method,
      // we may not be able to get the color we want. This is not the usual
      // case before Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.1 r1).
      // Yet, we change the bounds temporarily, just to be sure that we are
      // successful.
      ColorDrawable colorDrawable = (ColorDrawable)view.getBackground();

      mBounds.set(colorDrawable.getBounds()); // Save the original bounds.
      colorDrawable.setBounds(0, 0, 1, 1); // Change the bounds.

      colorDrawable.draw(mCanvas);
      color = mBitmap.getPixel(0, 0);

      colorDrawable.setBounds(mBounds); // Restore the original bounds.
    }
    else {
      color = ((ColorDrawable)view.getBackground()).getColor();
    }
  }

  return color;
}

Jetpropelled

I used this ((ColorDrawable) row.getBackground()).getColor() as (row.background as ColorDrawable).color but i faced with this error android.graphics.drawable.StateListDrawable cannot be cast to android.graphics.drawable.ColorDrawable – Caravel

You should not cast row.getBackground() to ColorDrawable without checking first if it is indeed a ColorDrawable. That's why I start with if(view.getBackground() instanceof ColorDrawable). In the case of a StateListDrawable (a DrawableContainer) you might need to work with drawable.getCurrent(). However, that alone might not suffice. It really depends on the drawable's structure. Also, be mindful that this snippet has almost 7 years and a lot has changed since then. Good luck. – Jetpropelled

Answer 3

You can also try something like set the color value as the tag like

android:tag="#ff0000"

And access it from the code

String colorCode = (String)btn.getTag();

Munro

I think this is the best approach, also work : @color/your_color, or, ?attr/colorPrimary – Treharne

Everything ingenious is simple! Thank you! – Peking

Answer 4

The simpliest way to get the color for me is:

int color = ((ColorDrawable)button.getBackground()).getColor();

Tested and working on Lollipop 5.1.1

Dorree

Answer 5

To get the background Drawable, you use

public Drawable getBackground();

as defined in the base View class.

Don't forget that the Button can have a background that is an image, a color, a gradient. If you use android:background="#ffffff", the class of the background will be

android.graphics.drawable.ColorDrawable

From there you can simply call

public int getColor()

Kurtzman

Answer 6

Try this:

list_view.getChildAt(position).setBackgroundColor(Color.YELLOW);        
ColorDrawable corItem = (ColorDrawable) list_view.getChildAt(position).getBackground();
if(corItem.getColor() == Color.YELLOW){
   Toast.makeText(NovoProcessoActivity.this,"Right Color!", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
   }else{
   Toast.makeText(NovoProcessoActivity.this,"Wrong Color!", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

or

int color =( (ColorDrawable)  list_view.getChildAt(position).getBackground()).getColor();

Suppositious

Answer 7

int colornumber=((ColorDrawable)v.getBackground()).getColor();

This is the best and simple way to get the color of a View (Button, TextView...)

To get set color to a View using java we use

v.setBackgroundColor(getColor(R.color.colorname_you_used));

Maribeth