How to change PreferenceActivity theme?

Question

I'm trying to change the theme for the PreferenceActivity in my app and I just can't get it to work.

This is the xml:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

        <SwitchPreference android:title="Auto Clear" android:key="autoclear" android:summary="Clear the command line when the code is being executed." android:defaultValue="false"/>
        <ListPreference android:title="Choose a theme" android:negativeButtonText="" android:dialogTitle="" android:key="theme" android:entries="@array/themesList" android:entryValues="@array/themesList" android:defaultValue="Default" />

</PreferenceScreen>

And this is the PreferenceActivity:

    @Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    this.setTheme(R.style.AppTheme);

    addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);

}

And the result is:

Answer 1

Have you tried applying the theme on the activity tag in the manifest? This is how I have done it before -

<activity 
  android:label="@string/app_name" 
  android:name="com.example.MyPreferenceActivity"
  android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Black"
  android:exported="true"
  android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"></activity>

EDIT:

The other option you could try is to override onApplyThemeResource(Resources.Theme theme, int resid, boolean first). Looking at the android source code the setTheme will internally call method.

/**
 * Called by {@link #setTheme} and {@link #getTheme} to apply a theme
 * resource to the current Theme object.  Can override to change the
 * default (simple) behavior.  This method will not be called in multiple
 * threads simultaneously.
 *
 * @param theme The Theme object being modified.
 * @param resid The theme style resource being applied to <var>theme</var>.
 * @param first Set to true if this is the first time a style is being
 *              applied to <var>theme</var>.
 */
protected void onApplyThemeResource(Resources.Theme theme, int resid, boolean first) {
    theme.applyStyle(resid, true);
}

Answer 2

At last i found out how to change theme of "PreferenceActivity" programmatically(via java code)

To change theme just do like this:

        @Override
        public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        setTheme(R.style.Holo_Theme_Light);
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        }

Always call setTheme(R.style.yourtheme); method before super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); method. By doing this it will produce result as shown below.

That's all.

If yo call setTheme(R.style.yourtheme); method after super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); method it will produce result as shown below.

Note: Themes are not recognize by nested PreferenceScreen. To apply theme to that nested PreferenceScreen you have to make an another PreferenceActivity for that nested PreferenceScreen and call setTheme(R.style.yourtheme); method there.