I was stuck for like three hours trying to figure out how to change the background of a ListActivity because I have used an adapter with a layout for each item so when I change the background at the layout, only the item’s background is changed, but at the end I figured that it was very easy here is how I did it :-
inside your onCreate() preferably before setting any adapters or putting any views, you insert the following line : getListView().setBackgroundResource("your Image"); that did the trick .
Hope it helps!!