Android Checkable Menu Item

Question

I have the following menu layout in my Android app:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/item1" 
          android:titleCondensed="Options"
          android:title="Highlight Options" 
          android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_preferences" />

   <item android:id="@+id/item2" 
         android:titleCondensed="Persist"
         android:title="Persist" 
         android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_preferences" 
         android:checkable="true" />
</menu>

My problem is that the second menu item doesn't appear to be "checkable" when I run my app in the Android emulator. There should be a green tick about the item, right? To indicate that its checkable.

Am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

Layout looks right. But you must check and uncheck menu item in code.

From the documentation:

When a checkable item is selected, the system calls your respective item-selected callback method (such as onOptionsItemSelected()). It is here that you must set the state of the checkbox, because a checkbox or radio button does not change its state automatically. You can query the current state of the item (as it was before the user selected it) with isChecked() and then set the checked state with setChecked().

Answer 2

Wrap the items in a group element, like this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <group android:checkableBehavior="all">
        <item android:id="@+id/item1"
              android:titleCondensed="Options"
              android:title="Highlight Options"
              android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_preferences">
        </item>
        <item android:id="@+id/item2"
              android:titleCondensed="Persist"
              android:title="Persist"
              android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_preferences"
              android:checkable="true">
        </item>
    </group>
</menu>

From the Android docs:

The android:checkableBehavior attribute accepts either:

single - Only one item from the group can be checked (radio buttons)

all - All items can be checked (checkboxes)

none - No items are checkable

Answer 3

You can create a checkable menu item by setting the actionViewClass to a checkable widget like android.widget.CheckBox

res/menu/menu_with_checkable_menu_item.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_favorite"
        android:checkable="true"
        android:title="@string/action_favorite"
        app:actionViewClass="android.widget.CheckBox"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText" />
</menu>

---

And you can can even style it to be a checkable star if you set actionLayout to a layout with a styled android.widget.CheckBox

res/layout /action_layout_styled_checkbox.xml

<CheckBox xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    style="?android:attr/starStyle"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

res/menu/menu_with_checkable_star_menu_item.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_favorites"
        android:checkable="true"
        android:title="@string/action_favorites"
        app:actionLayout="@layout/action_layout_styled_checkbox"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText" />
</menu>

---

To set the value

menuItem.setChecked(true/false);

To get the value

menuItem.isChecked()

---

Cast MenuItem to CheckBox

CheckBox checkBox= (CheckBox) menuItem.getActionView();

Answer 4

This may be theme dependant but my menu didn't show a checkbox. I found this :

Note: Menu items in the Icon Menu cannot display a checkbox or radio button. If you choose to make items in the Icon Menu checkable, then you must personally indicate the state by swapping the icon and/or text each time the state changes between on and off.

Answer 5

For Adding Menu items Programmatically,

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

    menu.add("Item1").setActionView(R.layout.action_layout_checkbox).setCheckable(true);
    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

res/layout /action_layout_checkbox.xml

<CheckBox xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" />