Set android shape color programmatically

Question

I am editing to make the question simpler, hoping that helps towards an accurate answer.

Say I have the following oval shape:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:shape="oval">
    <solid android:angle="270"
           android:color="#FFFF0000"/>
    <stroke android:width="3dp"
            android:color="#FFAA0055"/>
</shape>

How do I set the color programmatically, from within an activity class?

Answer 1

Note: Answer has been updated to cover the scenario where background is an instance of ColorDrawable. Thanks Tyler Pfaff, for pointing this out.

The drawable is an oval and is the background of an ImageView

Get the Drawable from imageView using getBackground():

Drawable background = imageView.getBackground();

Check against usual suspects:

if (background instanceof ShapeDrawable) {
    // cast to 'ShapeDrawable'
    ShapeDrawable shapeDrawable = (ShapeDrawable) background;
    shapeDrawable.getPaint().setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
} else if (background instanceof GradientDrawable) {
    // cast to 'GradientDrawable'
    GradientDrawable gradientDrawable = (GradientDrawable) background;
    gradientDrawable.setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
} else if (background instanceof ColorDrawable) {
    // alpha value may need to be set again after this call
    ColorDrawable colorDrawable = (ColorDrawable) background;
    colorDrawable.setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
}

Compact version:

Drawable background = imageView.getBackground();
if (background instanceof ShapeDrawable) {
    ((ShapeDrawable)background).getPaint().setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
} else if (background instanceof GradientDrawable) {
    ((GradientDrawable)background).setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
} else if (background instanceof ColorDrawable) {
    ((ColorDrawable)background).setColor(ContextCompat.getColor(mContext,R.color.colorToSet));
}

Note that null-checking is not required.

However, you should use mutate() on the drawables before modifying them if they are used elsewhere. (By default, drawables loaded from XML share the same state.)