There is a major error in the tutorials destined for newbies here:
http://developer.android.com/training/basics/actionbar/styling.html
It is major because it is almost impossible to detect cause of error for a newbie.
The error is that this tutorial explicitly states that the tutorial is valid for api level 11 (Android 3.0), while in reality this is only true for the theme Theme.Holo (without further extensions and variants)
But this tutorial uses the the theme Theme.holo.Light.DarkActionBar which is only a valid theme from api level 14 (Android 4.0) and above.
This is only one of many examples on errors found in these tutorials (which are great in other regards). Somebody should correct these errors this weekend because they are really costly and annoying timethieves. If there is a way I can send this info to the Android team, then please tell me and I will do it. Hopefully, however, they read Stackoverflow. (let me suggest: The Android team should consider to put someone newbie to try out all tutorials as a qualification that they are valid).
Another error I (and countless other people) have found is that the appcombat backward compliance module really is not working if you strictly follow the tutorials. Error unknown. I had to give up.
Regarding the error in this thread, here is a quote from the tutorial text with italics on the mismatch:
"
For Android 3.0 and higher only
When supporting Android 3.0 and higher only, you can define the action bar's background like this:
<resources>
<!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
<style name="CustomActionBarTheme"
parent="@style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
ERROR1: Only Theme.Holo can be used with Android 3.0. Therefore, remove the "Light.DarkActionBar etc.
ERROR2: @style/Theme.Holo"> will not work. It is necessary to write @android:style/Theme.Holo">in order to indicate that it is a built in Theme that is being referenced. (A bit strange that "built in" is not the default, but needs to be stated?)
The compiler advice for error correction is to define api level 14 as minimum sdk. This is not optimal because it creates incompliance to Andreoid 3.0 (api level 11). Therefore, I use Theme.Holo only and this seems to work fine (a fresh finding, though).
I am using Netbeans with Android support. Works nicely.