My Learnings on Styles and Themes in Android
I want to be able to customize the apps I build to look and feel unique and stand out, and in order to do so, I decided to learn about styles and themes. It seemed simple at first, but I soon realised I had to learn a lot about this topic.
This article will be a simple cover of the history of styles and themes in Android and the relevant aspects that are still in use, and the next part will discuss the implementation and details of using them.
Android 1.0
I couldn’t find much on the theme of the earliest versions of Android. It didn’t have a name or any set of principles or guidelines unlike the ones we have today.
Source: Android Central
Android Holo
In 2011, Android KitKat was released. One of its main features was Android Holo. It saw the introduction of the new Roboto font. New widgets were introduced including the search box, date and time picker, number picker, popup menu, etc. Most notable was the introduction of the action bar.
Material Design
In 2014, Material Design was introduced at Google I/O. It’s based on a set of guidelines that are based on the idea of a special kind of paper.
Material Design 2.0
In 2018, Google introduced the next iteration of its design language — Material Design 2.0. It involved a large scale redesign of most of Google’s products and more notably, the release of the Material Design Components library for Android.
Material You
In 2021, Google announced the newest version of Material Design that would be catered towards the user, made specially for You. Its main feature is the customisation of the color palette of the various applications. In addition to the primary and secondary colors defined in the color scheme of version 2.0, a new tertiary color was introduced, as well as the neutral color to represent the background. It would feature as part of Android 12.
Source: Android Developers Blog
In the next part, I’ll discuss the details of styles and themes, including a few widgets and their properties as well.
References and Further Reading
- https://www.androidcentral.com/android-ui-design-holo-material-design-material-you
- Material 1.0 website
- Material 2.0 website
- Material 3.0 website
