Android : Get view Reference to a Menu Item

Question

I plan to use quick actions UI pattern in my application. Android Quick Actions UI Pattern . The quick action window needs a pivot view to stick to.

    quickAction.show(View pivotView);

I intend to use quick action for the menu Item, I can get access to the item that is clicked. But the problem is i need to reference a view from the menu item so that i can pass it to the quick action.

How can i get reference to a view in the menuItem that is selected.

Answer 1

You can achieve this by providing your menu item with an actionViewClass property in xml and then you will be able to get the pivot view u wanted. The code would be something like this

<item
    android:id="@+id/menu_find"
    android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    android:actionViewClass="android.widget.ImageButton"
    />

In your OnCreateOptionsMenu do this

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_search, menu);
    locButton = (ImageButton) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_find).getActionView();
    locButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub
            createPopup();
            mQuickAction.show(v);
        }
    });
    return true;
}

Answer 2

Old question, but I ran into some issues with the actionViewClass attribute. For anyone who runs into this later...

Calling findViewById(R.id.mnu_item) in onOptionsItemSelected will return a View anchor.

QuickActions on the MenuItems aren't good design, but I found that they are the simplest way to implement submenus with custom backgrounds.

Answer 3

Inorder to get reference Views of menu items we need to do this,

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.section, menu);

    new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {

            final View menuItemView = findViewById(R.id.action_preview);
            // SOME OF YOUR TASK AFTER GETTING VIEW REFERENCE

        }
    });


    return true;
}

Answer 4

An update for anyone that want to find the menu view item for other reasons (like I wanted).

If you have access to and use AppCompat's Toolbar there is a way. It's not the most efficient way, but it's the easiest way I've found to access the menu item's view.

public void onViewCreated(View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) view.findViewById(R.id.toolbar);

    // Find Menu
    for (int toolbarChildIndex = 0; toolbarChildIndex < toolbar.getChildCount(); toolbarChildIndex++) {
        View view = toolbar.getChildAt(toolbarChildIndex);

        // Found Menu
        if (view instanceof ActionMenuView) {
            ActionMenuView menuView = (ActionMenuView) view;

            // All menu items
            for (int menuChildIndex = 0; menuChildIndex < menuView.getChildCount(); menuChildIndex++) {
                ActionMenuItemView itemView = (ActionMenuItemView) menuView.getChildAt(menuChildIndex);
                // Do something to itemView...
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

in the main activity class, best to override the onOptionsItemSelected(...) method; should be something as below:

public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
  // the id is of type int
  int someId = item.getItemId();
  // can use an if() or switch() statement to check if id is selected
  //a Toast message can be used to show item is selected
}

Answer 6

You can get reference to menu item like this:

MenuItem btnFavorites = menu.findItem(R.id.action_favorite);

And then do whatever you want with it. E.g. change its icon like this:

btnFavorites.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_favorite_false);