How to style the Google Play Services error on Android

Question

When using the new Google Maps V2 API on Android, the user will see an error message if their device does not have the Google Play (Services) app installed. I'm wondering if it's possible to somehow override the style of this error message to make it less jarring and fit the app styling more appropriately.

This is what the error looks like:

Answer 1

After doing some investigating, I determined that the best solution was to manually check for the presence of the Google Play Services library and display a custom error dialog or error layout. There are some utility methods in GooglePlayServicesUtil that make this fairly straightforward.

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    int statusCode =
            GooglePlayServicesUtil.isGooglePlayServicesAvailable(this);
    if (statusCode == ConnectionResult.SUCCESS) {
        // Continue with your regular activity/fragment configuration.
    } else {
        // Hide the map fragment so the default error message is not
        // visible.    
        findViewById(R.id.map).setVisibility(View.GONE);

        // Show a custom error message
        showErrorMessage(statusCode);
    }
}

private void showErrorMessage(final int statusCode) {
    // I've outlined two solutions below. Pick which one works best for
    // you and remove the if-block.
    boolean showDialog = false;

    if (showDialog) {
        // This is the easiest method and simply displays a pre-configured
        // error dialog
        GooglePlayServicesUtil.getErrorDialog(statusCode, this, 0).show();
    } else {
        // Show a completely custom layout
        findViewById(R.id.error).setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

        // Wire up the button to install the missing library
        Button errorButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.error_button);
        errorButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                try {
                    // Perform the correct action for the given status
                    // code!
                    GooglePlayServicesUtil.getErrorPendingIntent(
                            statusCode, getActivity(), 0).send();
                } catch (CanceledException e1) {
                    // Pass
                }
            }
        });
    }
}