EditText with custom theme shows underline under selection handle

Question

i am trying to modify the underline color of a EditText by applying a theme.

Style:

<style name="MyTheme.EditText" parent="Widget.AppCompat.EditText">
    <item name="colorControlActivated">@color/green</item>
</style>

EditText:

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/editText_amount"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:hint="@string/hint_enter_amount"
    android:theme="@style/MyTheme.EditText"/>

Basically it works, but when i try to select or move the cursor the selection handle is also underlined. You can see this in the screenshot.

Does someone know how to fix this?

Answer 1

You can use this style as a

<EditText 
   style="@style/MyTheme.EditText"/>

Or, you can separate your theme for referencing the editTextStyle attribute.

<style name="MyEditTextStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.EditText">
    <item name="colorControlActivated">@color/green</item>
</style>

<style name="MyTheme.EditText">
    <item name="editTextStyle">@style/MyEditTextStyle</item>
</style>

<EditText
    android:theme="@style/MyTheme.EditText"/>

Alright, but where are these underlines come from?

android:theme is an attribute of View and when you set a style as android:theme, that style will be wrapped by ContextThemeWrapper with context theme while in inflation of view.

So that means, if you set android:theme property with style that contains android:background item like

<item name="android:background">@color/green</item>

every child view of this theme owner will be have a green background.

"Widget.AppCompat.EditText" is a style and references ?attr/editTextBackground as a "android:background". And in v21/values-21.xml file @drawable/abc_edit_text_material is defined as editTextBackground.

So, for your example, @drawable/abc_edit_text_material becomes a background of your EditText and SelectionHandlers.