Android: Entire ListView changes color on focus, not just ListView child item

Question

I am trying to apply a selector to a ListView to make it easy for those without touch screens to navigate my app. The thing is, by applying the selector to the ListView, it

Answer 1

The reason you're seeing the focused colour being applied to the whole list is because you have directly referenced a colour value for the focused and pressed states. There is a known bug in Android v2.3 and below where the colour drawable doesn't honour its bounds in these circumstances.

To fix this issue you can create a shape drawable using the desired colours and reference that instead.

e.g define the shape in 'drawables/list_selector_focused.xml' as:

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:shape="rectangle">

    <solid android:color="@color/green" />

</shape>

And then reference that in the selector:

<item android:state_focused="true"
      android:state_selected="true"
      android:state_pressed="false"
      android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_focused" />