Material design backward compatibility android:colorAccent requires API level 21 when using appcompat7

Question

I have a maven android project in eclipse and even though I have configured my project to use the compatibility library its still give the following error in my styles.xml:

android:colorAccent requires API level 21 (current min is 15)    
android:colorPrimary requires API level 21 (current min is 15)
android:colorPrimaryDark requires API level 21 (current min is 15)

style.xml

<style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat"></style>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">

    <item name="android:colorPrimary">@color/primary</item>
    <item name="android:colorPrimaryDark">@color/primary_dark</item>
    <item name="android:colorAccent">@color/accent</item>    

</style>

AndroidManifest.xml

package="com.app"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="0.0.1-SNAPSHOT" >

<uses-sdk
    android:minSdkVersion="15"
    android:targetSdkVersion="21" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
    <activity android:name="com.app.activity.MainActivity" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
</application>

pom.xml

<build>
    <finalName>${project.artifactId}</finalName>
    <pluginManagement>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>com.jayway.maven.plugins.android.generation2</groupId>
                <artifactId>android-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${android.plugin.version}</version>
                <extensions>true</extensions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>com.jayway.maven.plugins.android.generation2</groupId>
            <artifactId>android-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <sdk>
                    <platform>21</platform>
                </sdk>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

    </plugins>

</build>

I want my applications material design features to have backward compatibility support. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Just deletes android:.

Check: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html#StyleExample

Answer 2

Remove the android prefix before the color name. So it will be:

<item name="colorPrimary">@color/primary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/primary_dark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">@color/accent</item>    

Answer 3

These properties are intended to work with Android 21, Material Theme thus you cannot use them in values/styles.xml. Instead, you should put them in values-v21/styles.xml.

If you want to implement Material Design in previous versions of android you should include compatibility library:

dependencies {
    compile "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.+"
}

and then you can use:

values/themes.xml:

<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
    <!-- colorPrimary is used for the default action bar background -->
    <item name=”colorPrimary”>@color/my_awesome_color</item>

    <!-- colorPrimaryDark is used for the status bar -->
    <item name=”colorPrimaryDark”>@color/my_awesome_darker_color</item>

    <!-- colorAccent is used as the default value for colorControlActivated,
         which is used to tint widgets -->
    <item name=”colorAccent”>@color/accent</item>

    <!-- You can also set colorControlNormal, colorControlActivated
         colorControlHighlight, and colorSwitchThumbNormal. -->

</style>

More info here: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2014/10/appcompat-v21-material-design-for-pre.html