Change application label font when using ActionBarsherlock

Question

I am trying to change the font of the Application label (I am using ActionBarSherlock as a library project in my application) and getting errors.

Following is code snippet where I am trying to set an external font, stored in assets, to the app label after setContentView().

mAppName = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.abs__action_bar_title);
Typeface face = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/handsean.ttf");
mAppName.setTypeface(face);

Following is the error from the logcat. The error seems to be showing up on the line mAppName.setTypeface(face).

E/AndroidRuntime(18762): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
E/AndroidRuntime(18762): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity  ComponentInfo{com.cheats/com.cheats.LandingPage}: java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2180)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2230)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$600(ActivityThread.java:141)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1234)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5039)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:793)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:560)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at com.cheats.LandingPage.onCreate(LandingPage.java:89)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5104)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1080)
E/AndroidRuntime(18762):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2144)

I found the following declaration of the text view for the application label in abs__action_bar_title_item.xml :

<TextView android:id="@+id/abs__action_bar_title"
              android:layout_width="wrap_content"
              android:layout_height="wrap_content"
              android:singleLine="true"
              android:ellipsize="end" />

Is this the right way to do it OR am I missing something ? Can some one advice ?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

After a lot of trials I was able to get the reference of the textView in the below manner and now the font has changed :

int titleId = Resources.getSystem().getIdentifier("action_bar_title", "id", "android");
if(titleId == 0)
    titleId = com.actionbarsherlock.R.id.abs__action_bar_title;

mAppName = (TextView) findViewById(titleId);
Typeface face = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/handsean.ttf");
mAppName.setTypeface(face);