MaterialButton backgroundTint ignored on API level 19

Overview

Have a custom theme overriding Theme.MaterialComponents.Dark and custom Widget.MaterialComponents.Button style overriding button text color.

Reproduction steps

Primary Color variants are shades of dark blue. The theme editor in Android Studio displays the button preview correctly, the buttons work correctly in API level 21+ but background is completely ignored on API level 19.

In styles.xml

   <style name="AppTheme.Dark" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents">
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorWhite</item>
        <item name="colorControlNormal">@color/colorWhiteTranslucent88</item>
        <item name="colorControlActivated">@color/colorWhite</item>
        <item name="colorControlHighlight">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
   </style>

   <style name="Widget.AppComponents.Button" parent="Widget.MaterialComponents.Button">
        <item name="rippleColor">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    </style>

Operating system and device

Emulator running API level 19 and API level 21

Android Studio theme preview:

App running in emulator 21:

App running in emulator 19:

[JurajKuliska]

I have just found out that if you specify rippleColor then the backgroundTint is ignored and the rippleColor is used as the background color instead.

[iRYO400]

In July 2019 the issue is still not fixed, dont wanna use alpha version of Material library https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.google.android.material/material

So I found a workaround. Create your custom style for material buttons:

    <style name="MaterialButton" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.NoActionBar">
        <item name="backgroundTint">@color/colorPrimary</item> // For API 21+
        <item name="rippleColor">@color/colorAccent</item> 
        ...
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorPrimary</item> // the main fix, For API 19
    </style>

then set it your MaterialButton like this android:theme="@style/MaterialButton"