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Android Application Development Cookbook

You're reading from   Android Application Development Cookbook Over 100 recipes to help you solve the most common problems faced by Android Developers today

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Product type Paperback
Published in Mar 2016
Publisher
ISBN-13 9781785886195
Length 428 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
Languages
Tools
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Authors (2):
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Rick Boyer Rick Boyer
Author Profile Icon Rick Boyer
Rick Boyer
Kyle Mew Kyle Mew
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Kyle Mew
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Toc

Table of Contents (17) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Activities FREE CHAPTER 2. Layouts 3. Views, Widgets, and Styles 4. Menus 5. Exploring Fragments, AppWidgets, and the System UI 6. Working with Data 7. Alerts and Notifications 8. Using the Touchscreen and Sensors 9. Graphics and Animation 10. A First Look at OpenGL ES 11. Multimedia 12. Telephony, Networks, and the Web 13. Getting Location and Using Geofencing 14. Getting your app ready for the Play Store 15. The Backend as a Service Options Index

Creating an Options menu

Before we actually create and display a menu, let's look at a menu to see the end result. The following is a screenshot showing the menu section of Chrome:

Creating an Options menu

The most obvious feature to note is that the menu will look different based on the screen size. By default, menu items will be added to the Overflow menu—that's the menu you see when you press the three dots at the far right edge.

Menus are typically created in resource files using XML (like many other Android resources) but they are stored in the res/menu directory though they can also be created in code. To create a menu resource, use the <menu> element as shown:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
</menu>

The <item> element defines each individual menu item and is enclosed in the <menu> element. A basic menu item looks as follows:

<item 
    android:id="@+id/settings"
    android:title="@string/settings&quot...
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