How to pass color resource as parameter (Android)

Question

This could be the simplest thing ever but for the life of me I haven't figured it out just yet.

I have a method that sets the background color of layout but I want to pass the color as a parameter like we do with drawable resources. eg

public void setIcon (Drawable icon){
  this.icon = context.getResources().getDrawable(icon);
}

setIcon(R.drawable.tuborg);

I want to be able to do something similar with color (R.color.id). I've tried

public void setColor (Color color){
  layout.setBackgroundColor(context.getResources().getColor(color));
}

and

public void setColor (Color color){
  layout.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(color));
}

both of which are asking for int, even (int color) doesn't work. Plus I'm trying to avoid Color.parse().

This is how I'm using the function

setColor(R.color.colorAccent);

I have an xml with various color codes. I want to be able just call this function and get the background color change.

Answer 1

You can try this out:

public void setColor (int colorId){
  layout.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(colorId));
}

In that method colorId should be an hexa code of the color

A good practice is to define the color on colors.xml (inside values folder).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<resources>
    <color name="red">#FF0000</color>
</resources>

In this case, you will use this function like this:

setColor(R.color.red);

So, there is no need to create a "color" object, you can pass values from colors.xml

Also, in your case you should modify the method setColor(Color aColor) to setColor(int aColor) to make it work with the xml color resource.

Answer 2

You need a color resource id. It starts with R.color which is actually an integer id.

public void setColor (@ColorInt int colorId){ // integer id 
  layout.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(colorId));
}

UPDATE

Although you are using it like setColor(R.color.colorAccent) but still your function parameter expects a color e.g.

setColor (Color color)

. You need to update the function parameter type to int, like I did in the above snippet.

setColor (int color)

Also from the docs of ContextCompat.getColor.

Returns a color associated with a particular resource ID.Starting in {@link android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES#M}, the returned color will be styled for the specified Context's theme.

@param id The desired resource identifier, as generated by the aapt tool. This integer encodes the package, type, and resource entry. The value 0 is an invalid identifier.

@return A single color value in the form 0xAARRGGBB.