Can't get Android DatePickerDialog to switch to Spinner mode

Question

I am building an app that uses a DatePickerDialog to allow the user to select their birthdate. Here's the code that loads the dialog right now:

private void selectBirthdate() {
    int year, month, day;
    if (mBirthDate == null) {
        year = DEF_YEAR;
        month = DEF_MON;
        day = DEF_DAY;
    }
    else {
        year = mBirthDate.get(Calendar.YEAR);
        month = mBirthDate.get(Calendar.MONTH);
        day = mBirthDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
    }
    new DatePickerDialog(
            getActivity(),
            new DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener() {
                @Override
                public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int month, int dayOfMonth) {
                    mBirthDate = new GregorianCalendar();
                    mBirthDate.set(Calendar.YEAR, year);
                    mBirthDate.set(Calendar.MONTH, month);
                    mBirthDate.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, dayOfMonth);
                    if (mTxtBirthDate != null) {
                        mTxtBirthDate.setText(mBirthDateFormat.format(mBirthDate.getTime()));
                    }
                }
            },
            year,
            month,
            day
    ).show();
}

And here's what the dialog looks like when I load it:

However, they want to be able to use the old-style spinner DatePicker, because in the new Calendar view, it's not always obvious to the user that they can change the year. So I have been studying up on the topic, and according to what I have read, it should be possible to use themes to force the DatePickerDialog into Spinner mode. So here's what I've done.

First, I added the following to my styles.xml:

(Sorry for the screenshot. Apparently SO's parser can't handle XML.)

Then, I update the DatePickerDialog constructor to use my new style:

new DatePickerDialog(
        getActivity(),
        R.style.MyDialogTheme,
        new DatePickerDialog.OnDateSetListener() {
            @Override
            public void onDateSet(DatePicker view, int year, int month, int dayOfMonth) {
                mBirthDate = new GregorianCalendar();
                mBirthDate.set(Calendar.YEAR, year);
                mBirthDate.set(Calendar.MONTH, month);
                mBirthDate.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, dayOfMonth);
                if (mTxtBirthDate != null) {
                    mTxtBirthDate.setText(mBirthDateFormat.format(mBirthDate.getTime()));
                }
            }
        },
        year,
        month,
        day
).show();

Now, when I load the dialog it looks like this:

Clearly something has changed; the dialog has a darker theme. But it's not doing what I want. It's still displaying the calendar view instead of the spinner view. Any idea what I might have missed?

Answer 1

Here is what worked for me:

1) Create these two styles in your style.xml

<style name="MySpinnerDatePickerStyle" parent="android:Theme.Material.Dialog">
    <item name="android:datePickerStyle">@style/MySpinnerDatePicker</item>
</style>

<style name="MySpinnerDatePicker" parent="android:Widget.Material.DatePicker">
    <item name="android:datePickerMode">spinner</item>
</style>

2) Set "MySpinnerDatePickerStyle" as your style in your new DatePickerDialog

DatePickerDialog datePickerDialog = new DatePickerDialog(myContext, R.style.MySpinnerDatePickerStyle, date, myCalendar
                    .get(Calendar.YEAR), myCalendar.get(Calendar.MONTH),
                    myCalendar.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH));

Hope this works for you.. Note: I am still trying to figure out how to style the spinner by changing color and text color