Custom theme of ActionBar (V7) doesn't work

Question

I use ActionBar in my Application. And I customized my own actionbar theme as the android developer site puts. unfortunately, My style doesn't work anyway. Every time my app is runned, there is an IllegalStateException thrown. And the detail is "You need to use a Theme.AppCompat theme (or descendant) with this activity.". Then, my custom style is here:

<resources>

    <!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
    <style name="AppBaseTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
        <item name="colorPrimary">#8FB01C</item>
        <!-- colorPrimaryDark is used for the status bar -->
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">#CCE96B</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">#303A0A</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="AppBaseTheme">

        <!-- the theme applied to the application or activity -->
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="android:actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/TabTextStyle</item>
        <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/action_bar_text_color</item>

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/TabTextStyle</item>
        <item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/action_bar_text_color</item>
    </style>
    <!-- ActionBar theme. -->
    <style name="ActionBarTheme" parent="AppTheme">
        <!-- when hide or show ActionBar frequently, use this attribute. -->
        <item name="windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
    </style>

    <!-- general styles for the action bar -->
    <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar">
        <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/TitleTextStyle</item>
        <item name="android:background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
        <item name="android:backgroundStacked">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
        <item name="android:backgroundSplit">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="titleTextStyle">@style/TitleTextStyle</item>
        <item name="background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
        <item name="backgroundStacked">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
        <item name="backgroundSplit">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
    </style>

    <!-- action bar title text -->
    <style name="TitleTextStyle" parent="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
        <item name="android:textColor">#400040</item>
    </style>

    <!-- action bar tab text -->
    <style name="TabTextStyle" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar.TabText">
        <item name="android:textColor">#400040</item>
    </style>

</resources>

And my manifest about this activity is here:

<activity
    android:name=".HomeActivity"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:launchMode="singleInstance"
    android:theme="@style/ActionBarTheme"
    android:uiOptions="splitActionBarWhenNarrow" >
</activity>

But the strange thing is when I set android:theme="@style/ActionBarTheme" to android:theme="@style/Theme.Appcomat.Light", it works well. But the style is not what I want. So, it does confuse me. So, I want to know why my custom style doesn't work.

---

Alright, After the ActionBarTheme is changed into this:

<style name="ActionBarTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light">
        <item name="colorPrimary">#8FB01C</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">#CCE96B</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">#4D4DFF</item>
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="android:actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/TabTextStyle</item>
        <item name="android:actionMenuTextColor">@color/action_bar_text_color</item>
        <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/TabTextStyle</item>
        <item name="actionMenuTextColor">@color/action_bar_text_color</item>
        <item name="windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
    </style>

it works well. Yep, here:

<style name="ActionBarTheme" parent="AppTheme">

It doesn't work. So I want to know why. Can't custom style be inherited, something wrong with my dev environment, or something else?

Answer 1

Maybe this is just the problem of your IDE. If you are using Eclipse, project-->clean, and then select your project, OK, then your project will rebuild. If you are using Android Studio, then, Build-->Rebuild Project or Clean Project, then take a look at the result.