Simple Android app Can't get a blank activity to use non AppCompat theme

Question

I've been going through the Android training tutorials and I can't seem to get a simple blank activity to apply the theme Theme.Holo.Light.

This is what I've done so far:

Set the minSdkVersion to 11 in gradle script and synced the project.
Applied the theme in the AndroidManifest.xml by setting:

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light"

Tried applying it at the application/activity level and by creating custom theme and setting the parent.

When running the app in the emulator it crashes with the error:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.test.themetest3/com.example.test.themetest3.MainActivity}: java.lang.IllegalStateException: You need to use a Theme.AppCompat theme (or descendant) with this activity.

According to the documentation the default theme for 11+ API levels is Theme.Holo but I can't get it to work and I'm obviously missing something. My activity insists on using AppCompat themes only. Do I need to extend some other class within my activity?

This is the activity code (generated by creating a blank activity).

package com.example.test.themetest3;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.design.widget.FloatingActionButton;
import android.support.design.widget.Snackbar;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
    setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

    FloatingActionButton fab = (FloatingActionButton) findViewById(R.id.fab);
    fab.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            Snackbar.make(view, "Replace with your own action", Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG)
                    .setAction("Action", null).show();
        }
    });
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
    return true;
}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
    // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
    // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
    int id = item.getItemId();

    //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement
    if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
        return true;
    }

    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}
}

Thanks for your assistance :).

Adeel Ahmad Adeel Ahmad · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-02T20:46:50

Your activity Extends AppCompatActivity, so you have to use AppCompatActivity themes. Use this in your styles.xml

parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light"

And if you also want to use Toolbar, you can get rid of ActionBar by using :

parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar"

Simple Android app Can't get a blank activity to use non AppCompat theme

1 Answers