I need help about "themes.xml" in android studio

[win-luck]

hello, I haven't dealt with android studio before, So I am studying it myself..
I know We sholud use Compose If we want to make app with android studio,
but in the Empty Activity(not Compose), I have a question about "theme"

My question is:

• What is the "themes.xml"?
• What is the difference in two "themes.xml"?

[designe]

Are you wondering about the difference between having only one themes.xml and having two in themes folder?

[win-luck]

right. I found many website about it, but I don't understand well.

[hyunjung-choi]

themes.xmlmanages app's resource such as color, style,,,ect. It affects the entire app.

Making themes folder is default.
But theme.xml makes one in the Jetpack compose project.
This reason finds yourself! :)
It'll be good to compose study to you!

Reference

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64352950/android-theme-xml-and-theme-xmlnight

[win-luck]

is it like a CSS?

[hyunjung-choi]

is it like a CSS?

Hmm... nope!

[hyunjung-choi]

is it like a CSS?

It includes not only style but also other Android resources. For example, there is a Material Components design in which the entire app is inherited.

[win-luck]

thank you for your help :)

[kldaji]

• What is the "themes.xml"?

Theme defines style of your application.
Style means kind of resource such as color, font, etc as @hyunjung-choi mentioned.
In manifest file, you can find application tag which represent your application with theme attribute.

And I think you may wonder why we have to define themes.xml.
Actually, it is time consuming for developers to define resources from scratch, so Android provides a number of predefined theme to developer.

So, we just inherit the predefined theme unless you want to custom your theme.

And it may also helpful reference Material Design to understand what is colorPrimary stands for?

• What is the difference in two "themes.xml"?

Android application supports light theme and dark theme.
That's why there exists two themes.xml.
Basically, Android Studio provides two themes.xml as you already know, you can see that the color and font will be changed when you toggle to dark mode in your device.

I made an effort to make it easier to understand 😂, and I hope it helps. 👍👍

[win-luck]

I have to read official text.. thank you for you kindly help :)