Widget.AppCompat.Button colorButtonNormal shows gray

I have values:styles.xml with:

<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/my_color</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/white</item>
</style>

and values-v21:styles.xml with:

<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
      <item name="android:colorButtonNormal">@color/my_color</item>
      <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/white</item>
</style>

And app style with

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
      <item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>

But the colors appears grey instead of @color/my_color

To customize one button only set android:theme="@style/AppTheme.Button" to your button.

<Button
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme.Button"
    />

Define your style as you did in your question

<style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/my_color</item>
</style>

[EDIT]

See GitHub demo here

Use Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored as a parent for your style.

<style name="RedButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/white</item>
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/red</item>
</style>

Use android:theme, not style in buttons definitions:

<Button android:theme="@style/RedButton"/>

See AppCompat v21 > Theming and Android Support Library v22.1 - AppCompat blog posts. (note on second post, android:theme is supported on API11-, it just doesn't do automatic inheritance from parent, you will have to specify it on each child, not an issue here but worth mentioning - see Chris Banes' post on that).

Put the xml line below in your "AppTheme" xml, rather than trying to set it from the "AppTheme.Button". This works for me on v22.1.1 with non-lollipop devices. I'm guessing this is a bug because your solution above works fine for lollipop.

<item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/my_color</item>

Ensure your Activity is extending AppCompatActivity, otherwise it won't handle appCompat styles properly.

• class: android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity
• Gradle: compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.0.1'

Use:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
  <item name="buttonStyle">@style/AppTheme.Button</item>
</style>

remove the android:

That works:

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <!-- android:buttonStyle for v21+ and buttonStyle for the rest -->
    <item name="buttonStyle">@style/MyCustomButton</item>
    <item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/MyCustomButton</item>
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/my_color</item>
</style>

<style name="MyCustomButton" parent="Base.Widget.AppCompat.Button">
    <item name="android:textColor">#ffffff</item>
    <item name="android:textAppearance">?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium</item>
</style>

colorButtonNormal can be set in the theme style. To change the text color, size or any other feature of the button you can create a style and then using buttonStyle (less than v21) or android:buttonStyle (v21+) in the the theme style to set the button style.

v21/styles.xml

    <style name="AppTheme.BlueButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
        <item name="android:colorButtonNormal">@color/blue</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/text_white</item>
    </style>

styles.xml

<style name="AppTheme.BlueButton" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored">
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/blue_tint</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/text_white</item>
</style>

Initially I'm too facing this problem. After making correction like above I got correct UI button

It seems to be a bug on Android framework that we can not change customize colorButtonNormal with Widget.AppCompat.Button theme.
A workaround solution is to define another custom AppCompat theme and use colorAccent to set colorButtonNormal.

There are two following steps.
1.Define another theme for your custom button.

<resources>

  <!-- Base application theme. -->
  <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
  </style>

  <!-- Custom button theme. -->
  <style name="CustomButtonTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <!-- Set your desired button color here. -->
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/red</item>
    <item name="buttonStyle">@style/Widget.AppCompat.Button.Colored</item>
  </style>
</resources>

2.Apply button theme in layout.

<Button android:theme="@style/CustomButtonTheme"/>

Hi I think the parent widget you used might be not correct one, it should android:Widget.Button for API version 21 or earlier version, for later version 21 or above you should use `android:Widget.Material.Button. Let say you have default style should look see below.

res/values/styles.xml
<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="android:buttonStyle">@style/AppTheme.Button</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="android:Widget.Button">
        <item name="android:background">@color/my_color</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/white</item>
    </style>

</resources>

For API version 21 the resource style file should look like (res/values-v21/style.xml)

<resources>

    <style name="AppTheme.Button" parent="android:Widget.Material.Button">
        <item name="android:background">@color/my_color</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/white</item>
    </style>

</resources>

Thank you Let me know if you have any question.

In case you wonder why colorButtonNormal is not picked up as defined for disabled buttons, you might also need to set android:disabledAlpha to 1.0 in your theme, otherwise your color will by default blend into the button's background. Example:

<style name="MyButtonTheme" parent="ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light">
    <item name="android:disabledAlpha">1.0</item>
    <item name="colorButtonNormal">@color/my_solid_disabled_color</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/my_solid_accent_color</item>
    <item name="buttonStyle">@style/my_button_style</item>
</style>

Try buttonStyle instead of android:buttonStyle, since this is AppCompat attribute pre Lollipop, so it should be without android prefix