Create Menu In Android

Introduction

In this article I explain how to create a menu in Android. Menus are a very important user interface entity in Android that provides actions for a specific view such as shown in the following application.

In this application I will show how to code a menu in Android and how it works.

Step 1

First of all create a new Android application project as shown below:

Step 2

Now open the XML file as "res/layout/activity_main.xml" and update it as in the following code:

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

    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

    android:layout_width="match_parent"

    android:layout_height="match_parent"

    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <TextView

        android:id="@+id/textView1"

        android:layout_width="200dp"

        android:layout_height="50dp"

        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"

        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"

        android:layout_marginTop="170dp"

        android:gravity="center"

        android:textColor="#778866"

        android:background="#020202"

        android:text="@string/menu"

        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

</RelativeLayout>

 

Step 3

In this step create a new XML file named "menu.xml" using the following code:

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

    <item

        android:id="@+id/menu_settings"

        android:orderInCategory="100"

        android:showAsAction="never"

        android:title="@string/menu_settings"/>

      <item

          android:id="@+id/option"

          android:icon="@drawable/option_icon"

          android:title="Option"/>

      <item

          android:id="@+id/delete"

          android:icon="@drawable/delete_icon"

          android:title="Delete"/>

      <item

          android:id="@+id/back"

          android:icon="@drawable/back_icon"

          android:title="Back"/>

</menu>

Step 4

Now open the "MainAcivity.java" file and update it with your logic.

package com.example.menucreation;

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 MainActivity extends Activity {

    @Override

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);     

    }

   // Initiating Menu XML file (menu.xml)

    @Override

    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu)

    {

        MenuInflater menuInflater = getMenuInflater();

        menuInflater.inflate(R.layout.menu, menu);

        return true;

    }

    @Override

    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item)

    {

        switch (item.getItemId())

        {

        case R.id.menu_settings:

            Toast.makeText(this, "menu settings", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            return true;

        case R.id.option:

            Toast.makeText(this, "Option is Selected", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            return true;

        case R.id.delete:

            Toast.makeText(this, " deleted ", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            return true;

 

        case R.id.back:

            Toast.makeText(this, "you are exit", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            return true;

        default:

            return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);

        }

    }   

}

Step 5

Open the "strings.xml" file and update it as given below.

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

<resources>

    <string name="app_name">MenuCreation</string>

    <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>

    <string name="menu_settings">Settings</string>

    <string name="option"></string>

    <string name="delete"></string>

    <string name="back"></string>

    <string name="menu">"Welcome in Menu "</string>

</resources>

Step 6

Output

In the output you will see in the outer Linear Layout I defined a vertical text view, two edit texts, one button and one inner Linear Layout with two horizontal buttons inside it.

Selected option: