android support v7 appcompat install android studio

You will see that these attributes are different than using the standard Material Theme since they have dropped the android: prefix as they are now part of your application. In our values/styles.xml you will create the base theme of your application and then set custom attributes. To use one of these themes, you’ll want to create two folders under your Resources folder named values and values-v21 where you will create a styles.xml where you can customize your applications theme. You will find three new themes that you can inherit from:

This means that the actual themes and attributes are completely different between normal Material and AppCompat themes. There are many differences to the actual resources that are embedded into your app when you use the AppCompat library. Since you will now be able to target older versions of Android, you will want to adjust your Minimum and Target Android version under Android Application in the project options.

This will also install the Support v4 Library, which is required because it provides controls that help maintain backwards compatibility. To start integrating AppCompat into your Android project you will want to install the Support Library v7 AppCompat from the Component Store or directly from NuGet. Let’s see how easy it is to get started with the new Support Library v7 AppCompat by updating our Toolbar example. However, now you can use this updated library to add Material Design to any of your applications and use new controls like the new Toolbar, which replaces the ActionBar.

We recently took a look at how this library gives developers an opportunity to add the ActionBar to applications targeting older devices all the way back to API 7. Until Google introduced revision 21 of the Android Support v7 AppCompat library, Material Design themes, controls, and features were utilized only if you wanted to target devices running API 21. Android 5.0 Lollipop introduced a complete refresh, known as Material Design, to the Android user interface, which generated rapid adoption throughout the development community.

Android support v7 appcompat install android studio