Implement option menu using XML

In my old articles, "Exercise: Menu and Dialog" and "Implement a Help Dialog, using onCreateOptionsMenu(), onOptionsItemSelected() and AlertDialog.Builder", option menu was added using programmatic coding. In this article, another method to implement option menu, using XML, will be introduced.



First of all, create a new Android application AndroidOptionMenu.

Create a folder, "menu", under /res

Create a menu.xml under /res/menu

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:id="@+id/menu_help"
        android:title="Help" />
  <item android:id="@+id/menu_OK"
        android:title="OK" />
  <item android:id="@+id/menu_Cancel"
        android:title="Cancel" />
</menu>

Modify AndroidOptionMenu.java to implement the methods onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) and onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item):

package com.exercise.AndroidOptionMenu;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuInflater;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class AndroidOptionMenu extends Activity {
  /** Called when the activity is first created. */
  @Override
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.main);
  }

 @Override
 public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
  MenuInflater myMenuInflater = getMenuInflater();
  myMenuInflater.inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
     return true;
 }

 @Override
 public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  switch(item.getItemId()){
   case(R.id.menu_OK):
    Toast.makeText(this, "OK", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    break;
   case(R.id.menu_help):
    Toast.makeText(this, "Help", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    break; 
   case(R.id.menu_Cancel):
    Toast.makeText(this, "Cancel", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    break;
  } 
  return true;
 } 
}