ActionBarCompat - how to use it

Question

I'm trying to use ActionBarCompat on my own project. I've already opened the sample project (http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ActionBarCompat/index.html), But I don't know how to implement it on my own.

I can't find any tutorial of some kind. Should I make this project as a library? Can someone give me some directions, please.

Answer 1

As for implementation, just stick to the sample code provided under the MainActivity.java class. You can find it here or under <your local android-sdks folder>/samples/android-15/ActionBarCompat/src/com/example/android/actionbarcompat/MainActivity.java. In general, all you need to do is the following:

1. Code a menu resource where you declare the items for the action bar (See http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ActionBarCompat/res/menu/main.html)
2. Code an Activity that extends ActionBarActivity
3. Override onCreateOptionsMenu() so that it inflates the menu you coded in step #1
4. Override onOptionsItemSelected() so that you handle the event when the user taps any of the ActionBar items you defined in step #1.

I think it makes sense to build an Android Library project out of the ActionBarCompat code; then you can just reference it from your custom Android project. Remember it's licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Answer 2

This answer describes how to use the new ActionBarCompat library (July 2013).

In Android Studio, open build.gradle and add this:

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:18.0.+'
}

In Eclipse, create a library project based on the code in sdk\extras\android\support\v7\appcompat and add it to your project.

Activities have to extend ActionBarActivity.

import android.support.v4.view.MenuItemCompat;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.SearchView;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBar;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

    ActionBar ab;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        ab = getSupportActionBar();
        ab.setTitle("Test");
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);

        MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
        SearchView searchView = 
                    (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);

        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }
}

Themes have to be (or extend) one of the Theme.AppCompat themes, for example:

<activity android:theme="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light" ... />

Source: How to add ActionBarCompat to your project, blog post by Gabriele Mariotti