android selectableItemBackground selection

You can use a LayerDrawable in order to draw the ripple effect drawable (?attr:selectableItemBackground) over your activated state color.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">    <item>        <selector>            <item android:state_activated="true">                <color android:color="?attr/colorPrimary"/>            </item>            <item>                <color android:color="@android:color/transparent"/>            </item>        </selector>    </item>    <item android:drawable="?attr/selectableItemBackground"/></layer-list>

Edit:As it's not possible to use theme attributes in an XML drawable before API 21, it seems to be better to put the ripple effect drawable as a foreground drawable, and the activated color selector drawable as a background drawable.

<View    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"    android:id="@+id/yourView"    android:layout_width="wrap_content"    android:layout_height="wrap_content"    android:foreground="?attr/selectableItemBackground"    android:background="@drawable/activated_color_selector">

With res/drawable/activated_color_selector.xml containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">    <item android:state_activated="true">        <!-- Can't use the ?attr/colorPrimary before API 21 -->        <color android:color="@color/primaryColor"/>    </item>    <item>        <color android:color="@android:color/transparent"/>    </item></selector>

For those who only care about API >= 21 now in 2020, here's a simpler solution :

<ripple    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"    android:color="?colorControlHighlight">    <!-- 🡡 the ripple's color (1) -->    <!-- 🡣 no `id` so our <shape> will be drawn and not just used as mask -->    <item>        <shape>            <corners android:radius="9dp" />            <solid android:color="@color/white" />        </shape>    </item></ripple>

(1) If you don't override colorControlHighlight in your theme, the ripple's color will be Android's default. If you do override it in your theme but want to use Android's default for a specific case use ?android:colorControlHighlight instead.

To change ripple color throughout the app you can ad this in your app theme

<item name="colorControlHighlight">@color/ripple</item>