Grey buttons when adding actions to notifications in Jelly Bean

Question

I am adding two buttons to a notification in my app that is set to target API Level 8. The problem is that the two buttons appears as two large grey buttons, totally out of place with the rest of the notifications. I've tested it both on Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus.

All examples I've seen have the nice looking black buttons like the incoming call notification: http://www.androidng.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/android-jelly-bean-notifications.jpeg

I would guess this would be easy, but no such luck today. Does anyone know where I might have taken the wrong turn? Below is a snippet of my code which generates the notification with the latest support library.

NotificationManager nm = (NotificationManager) this
            .getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder(this);
    builder.setContentIntent(contentIntent)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_stat_radio)                
                .setContentTitle(message)
                .setTicker(message) 
                .setPriority(android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.PRIORITY_HIGH)
                .setWhen(System.currentTimeMillis())
                .setAutoCancel(false)                   
                .addAction(android.R.drawable.ic_btn_speak_now, "Play", contentIntent)
                .addAction(android.R.drawable.ic_dialog_map, "Stop", contentIntent)
                .setContentText(message);

    Notification n = builder.build();

    //nm.notify(0, n);
    startForeground(1, n);

Answer 1

So this is happening because your targetSdk in your AndroidManifest.xml is < 11.

I believe the change in compatibility that happens when you target 11 is that the default theme because Holo. Since yours (and my) target is less than 11, it's resorting to some compatibility theme that it applies on these buttons even though it shouldn't. I assume that even though your app / activity is set to Holo, it doesn't actually apply to the notification since they are are in a different process.

That's just my guess. Using CommonsWare's notification demo and just modify the targetSdk shows this behavior.