How to include a common menu item in multiple menus in Android menu xml?

Question

Many of menus have always one item same to all.

Is there the way to define that item as extra menu and include it to all other?

Something like this:

menu/main.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/menu_main"
          android:title="@string/text_mainmenu" />
</menu>

menu/other.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      parent="@menu/main">
    <item android:id="@+id/menu_other"
          android:title="@string/text_othermenu" />
</menu>

I know, that it's possible to do it programmaticaly, but I thought xml-way is nicer.

score 70 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 08 '21 at 18:35

70

Inflating each menu and calling to super works great! Here is an example:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) 
{
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.other, menu);
    return true;
}

You can control the order if super also adds more items by calling it before/after other inflates, or not call at all it to ignore those items.

edited Jan 08 '21 at 18:35

stkent

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answered Feb 10 '11 at 08:22

azelez

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Working great for me as well - in my case I'm putting the super at the end of `onCreateOptionsMenu()` so that the "different" menu options show at the top of the menu instead of at the bottom. – George Feb 21 '13 at 05:56
6

Use android:orderInCategory to have an explicit order of items, which is _independent_ of the inflation order. – Bananeweizen Feb 07 '15 at 17:00
Very helpful. An alternative usage of this capability is to have Activity B extend Activity A -- each with its own menu. In this situation Activity B will have the menu options its menu defines combined with those defined by the menu used by Activity A. – dazed Dec 16 '15 at 11:29
1

Awesome, someone actually putting up an example of doing it, so many android menu examples and all of them seem to `super() clear() inflate()` which defeats the purpose of having object hierarchies. – ebyrob Nov 10 '16 at 21:37

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '10 at 17:07

13

AFAIK, <include> only works for layout XML, not menu XML, though you can certainly give it a try. Lacking that, the programmatic option (inflating both menu XML files) is the only option I am aware of.

answered Dec 02 '10 at 17:07

CommonsWare

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as i wrote about programmatic way, I meant a bit different thing, but then I saw, i can inflate each single menu in my activity and so to create custom menus from some menu-stones. Thank you for bringing me to this idea. – Tima Dec 06 '10 at 17:02
1

@Tima Genius! Didn't think of inflating more than one menu XML. That being said, I think it's odd `include` and `merge` are only supported in layouts, but hey, what do I know. – Joshua Pinter May 09 '14 at 02:03
Little code example might be nice, I don't often see inflate happening more than once on a given menu without clear(). – ebyrob Nov 10 '16 at 21:36
@ebyrob, Common rarely give code examples for whatever reason..At least in these old android dev questions – lasec0203 Jul 19 '22 at 16:29

How to include a common menu item in multiple menus in Android menu xml?

menu/main.xml

menu/other.xml

2 Answers2

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