Background Color for Launcher Icons

Question

Background Color for Launcher Icons

Nathan Sokalski 4,111

This is probably a very simple question, but I can't quite seem to find the answer. I want to change the background of the launcher icons for my app (ic_launcher/ic_launcher_round). All I need is a solid color. I have found multiple articles that use ic_launcher.xml & ic_launcher_round.xml files containing an adaptive-icon which contains a background in the mipmap-anydpi-v26 folder. However, I do not want a mipmap-anydpi-v26 folder because my app will not be used by v26 devices. All the step-by-step tutorials I have found use Android Studio, and do not show the code it creates. Is there any way to specify a launcher icon background color with Xamarin.Android & Visual Studio?

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Answer 1

Anonymous

Hello,

Welcome to our Microsoft Q&A platform!

I do not want a mipmap-anydpi-v26 folder because my app will not be used by v26 devices.

mipmap-anydpi-v26 is used in API 26 or later. Android 8.0 or later must create alternative drawable resources in app in res/mipmap-anydpi-v26/ic_launcher.xml

Is there any way to specify a launcher icon background color with Xamarin.Android & Visual Studio?

Xamarin.Android do not have doc to change the launcher icon background color. But have doc to change the icon.

If you want to do it, I recommend you to using following way to change it.

Open the mipmap-anydpi-v26, open the icon.xml and the icon_round.xml, check the value of <background /> tag, for example, my <background android:drawable="@color/launcher_background" /> , launcher_background value store in the colors.xml(Open your android project, find the Resources folder, open the values, find the colors.xml file ).

Change value of the launcher_background, this background color of icon will be changed.

   <color name="launcher_background">#00FFFF</color>

Best Regards,

Leon Lu

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Nathan Sokalski 4,111 Reputation points

2022-01-18T03:06:19.04+00:00
I have created a mipmap-anydpi-v26 folder with ic_launcher.xml & ic_launcher_round.xml, both of which are marked as AndroidResource & contain the following:

<adaptive-icon xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <background android:drawable="@color/ic_launcher_background"/> <foreground android:drawable="@mipmap/ic_launcher_foreground"/> </adaptive-icon>

This seems to work fine. However, if I change the drawable property of the foreground element (to ic_launcher or ic_launcher_round), it does not seem to work. All of my mimpap-**** folders contain ic_launcher.png & ic_launcher_round.png files (all of which are marked as AndroidResource), along with the ic_launcher_foreground.png files. Here are screenshots of using ic_launcher_foreground vs ic_launcher & ic_launcher_round:

As you can see, the first one uses the background color resource I specified & the ic_launcher_foreground.png image from one of the mipmap folders. The second one, however, does not (or maybe it is just hidden) use a background, and I have no idea where the image is coming from, because it is not the ic_launcher.png or ic_launcher_round.png files in my mipmap folders. Why does this work for ic_launcher_foreground.png but not the others?
Anonymous

2022-01-18T07:50:36.193+00:00

Please put your ic_launcher.png to the mipmap-hdpi, mipmap-mdpi, mipmap-xhdpi, mipmap-xxhdpi and mipmap-xxxhdpi folders(If you do not know how to generate icon for different resolution, please search Launcher icon generator - Android Asset Studio - GitHub Pages in google, you will find a tool to generate it) . Then open the mipmap-anydpi-v26, you will find two file icon.xml and icon_round.xml, you need to change the value of <foreground android:drawable="@mipmap/ic_launcher" /> in this two xml file.
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Nathan Sokalski 4,111 Reputation points

2022-01-18T19:30:34.883+00:00

Once I changed the xml file names to icon.xml & icon_round.xml it seems to work (I also had to modify AndroidManifest.xml by hand, Visual Studio doesn't seem to be displaying icon.xml or icon_round.xml in the list of choices for Application icon under the Android Manifest section). Is it possible that it was confusing ic_launcher.xml with ic_launcher.png (since they would have the same name as resources)? Either way, it is now working, thanks for your help!
Anonymous

2022-01-19T07:11:15.547+00:00

Is it possible that it was confusing ic_launcher.xml with ic_launcher.png (since they would have the same name as resources

Yes, use different name is better.
Nathan Sokalski 4,111 Reputation points

2022-01-19T15:54:35.237+00:00

Thank you, I will be sure to do that in the future (I think it may have been the cause of my problem, but it is now fixed). I was asking because the files created by the project template in Visual Studio used the same name for the *.xml & *.png files, so I guess I assumed there was no reason to change the names. I think the template should be modified so that there is no confusion about or renaming necessary when creating & naming the launcher icon resources. Thanks again!
Anonymous

2022-01-20T08:14:14.97+00:00

You can send feedback in the VS about changing the names.

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Background Color for Launcher Icons

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