title: Android .xml files: Why do predefined colors not work for me?
body: <p>When I look at misc. Android tutorials and examples when it comes to specifying colors I very often see constants like <code>@color/red</code> or <code>@color/black</code> etc. being used. For some strange reason that NEVER works for me! I always need to specify colors using the "#RGB", #ARGB, ..., #AARRGGBB notation.</p>
  
  <p>As soon, as I try to use any of those mnemonic constants like e.g. "@color/red" I am getting error messages like these:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[...] C:\Users\mmo\Test\res\drawable\edit_text.xml:5: error: Error: No resource found that matches the given name (at 'drawable' with value '@color/orange').
  [...] C:\Users\mmo\Test\res\drawable\myDrawable.xml:3: error: Error: No resource found that matches the given name (at 'drawable' with value '@color/black').
  [...] C:\Users\mmo\Test\res\drawable\myDrawable.xml:4: error: Error: No resource found that matches the given name (at 'drawable' with value '@color/black').
  [...] C:\Users\mmo\Test\res\drawable\myDrawable.xml:5: error: Error: No resource found that matches the given name (at 'drawable' with value '@color/green').
  [...] C:\Users\mmo\Test\res\drawable\myDrawable.xml:6: error: Error: No resource found that matches the given name (at 'drawable' with value '@color/black').
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is that so? Why can't I use these predefined constants? Do I need to prefix them with some package name (I tried <code>@android:color/red</code> but that only caused a different error)?
  Do I need to specify these colors myself? If so: how and where? Any ideas or suggestions?</p>
  
  <p>Michael</p>