Android – How to style the menu items on an Android action bar

androidandroid-actionbar

There's been many questions on styling on action bars, but the ones I've found either are relating to styling the tabs, or have answers that don't work for me.

The question is really quite simple. I want to be able to change the text styling (even just colour) of the menu items in the action bar.

I've read this:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/04/customizing-action-bar.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FhsDu+%28Android+Developers+Blog%29

And this question:
Style an Action Bar in Android Honeycomb

From which I have put together a test application that I am using to try and get the menu items to change. It uses all the default values for an app created in the eclipse android plugin, except for the following.

A styles file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

<style name="MyAppTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
    <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
</style>

<style name="MyActionBar" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.ActionBar">
    <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/MyActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
    <item name="android:actionMenuTextAppearance">@style/MyActionBar.MenuTextStyle</item>
</style>

<style name="MyActionBar.TitleTextStyle"
    parent="android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
    <item name="android:textColor">#F0F</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
    <item name="android:textSize">24dip</item>
</style>

<style name="MyActionBar.MenuTextStyle"
    parent="android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
    <item name="android:textColor">#F0F</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
    <item name="android:textSize">24dip</item>
</style>
</resources>

A menu for the action bar:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

<item android:showAsAction="always|withText" android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_edit"
    android:id="@+id/menu_item1" android:title="menu_item1"></item>

<item android:showAsAction="always|withText" android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_edit"
    android:id="@+id/menu_item2" android:title="menu_item2"></item>

</menu>

The main activity:

public class Main extends Activity {

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
}

/**
 * Create the options menu that is shown on the action bar
 */
@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
    return true;
}
}

The application compiles and runs. The styling for the action bar title text works perfectly (is that lovely shade of pink #F0F I've defined). The menu items do not change appear but with default styling (holo light).

What am I doing wrong ?

Best Answer

Instead of having the android:actionMenuTextAppearance item under your action bar style, move it under your app theme.

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

You need to override onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) and write the application state values you want to change to the Bundle parameter like this:

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Save UI state changes to the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle will be passed to onCreate if the process is
  // killed and restarted.
  savedInstanceState.putBoolean("MyBoolean", true);
  savedInstanceState.putDouble("myDouble", 1.9);
  savedInstanceState.putInt("MyInt", 1);
  savedInstanceState.putString("MyString", "Welcome back to Android");
  // etc.
}

The Bundle is essentially a way of storing a NVP ("Name-Value Pair") map, and it will get passed in to onCreate() and also onRestoreInstanceState() where you would then extract the values from activity like this:

@Override
public void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
  boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
  double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
  int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
  String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

Or from a fragment.

@Override
public void onViewStateRestored(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewStateRestored(savedInstanceState);
    // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
    // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
    boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
    double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
    int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
    String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

You would usually use this technique to store instance values for your application (selections, unsaved text, etc.).

Android – How to lazy load images in ListView in Android

Here's what I created to hold the images that my app is currently displaying. Please note that the "Log" object in use here is my custom wrapper around the final Log class inside Android.

package com.wilson.android.library;

/*
 Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
*/
import java.io.IOException;

public class DrawableManager {
    private final Map<String, Drawable> drawableMap;

    public DrawableManager() {
        drawableMap = new HashMap<String, Drawable>();
    }

    public Drawable fetchDrawable(String urlString) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {
            return drawableMap.get(urlString);
        }

        Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "image url:" + urlString);
        try {
            InputStream is = fetch(urlString);
            Drawable drawable = Drawable.createFromStream(is, "src");


            if (drawable != null) {
                drawableMap.put(urlString, drawable);
                Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "got a thumbnail drawable: " + drawable.getBounds() + ", "
                        + drawable.getIntrinsicHeight() + "," + drawable.getIntrinsicWidth() + ", "
                        + drawable.getMinimumHeight() + "," + drawable.getMinimumWidth());
            } else {
              Log.w(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "could not get thumbnail");
            }

            return drawable;
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "fetchDrawable failed", e);
            return null;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "fetchDrawable failed", e);
            return null;
        }
    }

    public void fetchDrawableOnThread(final String urlString, final ImageView imageView) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {
            imageView.setImageDrawable(drawableMap.get(urlString));
        }

        final Handler handler = new Handler() {
            @Override
            public void handleMessage(Message message) {
                imageView.setImageDrawable((Drawable) message.obj);
            }
        };

        Thread thread = new Thread() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                //TODO : set imageView to a "pending" image
                Drawable drawable = fetchDrawable(urlString);
                Message message = handler.obtainMessage(1, drawable);
                handler.sendMessage(message);
            }
        };
        thread.start();
    }

    private InputStream fetch(String urlString) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
        DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpGet request = new HttpGet(urlString);
        HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
        return response.getEntity().getContent();
    }
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

Android – How to lazy load images in ListView in Android

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