How to use theme attribute as color selector

I believe it is impossible from XML right now. I know that Android framework only added support for theme attributes in drawable resources in Lollipop and it doesn't work below API 21. I believe that color resources never got the support.

However, you can do that from code!

final TypedArray attributes = itemView.getContext().obtainStyledAttributes(R.styleable.WowSdkSongViewHolder); try { int colorAccent = attributes.getColor(R.styleable.WowSdkSongViewHolder_colorAccent, 0); final int textColorPrimary = attributes.getColor( R.styleable.WowSdkSongViewHolder_android_textColorPrimary, 0); title.setTextColor(new ColorStateList( new int[][] { ThemeUtils.ACTIVATED_STATE_SET, ThemeUtils.EMPTY_STATE_SET }, new int[] { colorAccent, textColorPrimary })); } finally { attributes.recycle(); } 

First you need to get values for attributes in the current theme as you'd normally do. Then you have to create a ColorStateList object. The constructor accepts an array of state lists (actually state arrays, that's way it's int[][]) and an array of corresponding colours. Then you can set this ColorStateList on your TextView with a setTextColor overload.

AppCompat has some handy constants defined in ThemeUtils. However, this class is hidden and in an internal package, so I suggest copying what you need to your own ThemeUtils.

I know this is an old post, but still. You can use theme attributes and even the alpha property if your min version is API 23 or above.

From official documentation:

Each item must define an android:color attribute, which may be an HTML-style hex color, a reference to a color resource, or -- in API 23 and above -- a theme attribute that resolves to a color.

Starting with API 23, items may optionally define an android:alpha attribute to modify the base color's opacity. This attribute takes a either floating-point value between 0 and 1 or a theme attribute that resolves as such. The item's overall color is calculated by multiplying by the base color's alpha channel by the alpha value.

What I did to achieve this, was first create custom values/attrs.xml

<attr name="textOnSelector" type="reference"/> 

Then define it's values in a values/themes/themes.xml

<item name="textOnSelector">@color/nice_grey_input</item> 

Then finally, calling it from the selector, res/color/selector.xml

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <item android:state_selected="true" android:color="?attr/colorAccent"/> <item android:state_selected="false" android:color="?attr/textOnSelector"/> </selector> 

This way I was able to get an item selected within recyclerView, but compatibile with theme changes, regardless of minimum API.