“Field can be converted to a local variable” message appearing when setting Android ActionBar colour

What the warning is telling you is that actionBarColor shouldn’t be a global variable (i.e. a field), because it’s only used in one method (onCreate). This is good advice: you should always minimize the scope of your variables, because it improves readability and reduces possibilities for programming errors.

To get rid of the warning, fix the problem by declaring the variable within onCreate:

final String actionBarColor = "#B36305";

if(actionBar != null) {
    actionBar.setBackgroundDrawable(
        new ColorDrawable(Color.parseColor(actionBarColor)));
}