Possible to have action overflow icon in top action bar of split actionbar?

Question

Let me explain my current scenario.

I have a split action bar. From what I understand all action items will go to the bottom of the split action bar. I want to have some action items in the top action bar so I made a custom action bar by making an xml file for it.

In my onCreate, I have this to set up the top action bar...(custom_actionbar is an xml file I made.)

getActionBar().setDisplayOptions(
ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_HOME | ActionBar.DISPLAY_HOME_AS_UP
                | ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM);
View view = View.inflate(getApplicationContext(),
        R.layout.custom_actionbar, null);
getActionBar().setCustomView(view);

So this works to set up the top of the action bar.

Now I am getting closer to my problem. I can currently get an action overflow icon in the bottom of the split action bar, but I want the icon to be at the top of the split action bar.

For a simple action bar it is possible to set the action overflow icon by doing android:showAsAction = "never" in the respective menu xml file.

HOWEVER, if I am doing a custom action bar for the top, I can not do this. This will only apply to the bottom action bar as all of the elements in the respective menu xml file will go to the bottom of a split action bar.

Does anyone know how I can get the action overflow icon to appear at the top of the split action bar or should I remodel everything in a different way? Like just have a normal action bar and then have some strip to hold image buttons at the bottom to mimic a split action bar? Or is there a way to get the elements in the menu xml file to go to the top of the split action bar?

Any Help is appreciated. Thanks

So basically you want the overflow menu in both the top and the bottom action bar? — user2511882, Dec 25 '13 at 03:21
I want the overflow menu in the top action bar. I will check the link you provided — Rohan, Dec 25 '13 at 04:40

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 25 '13 at 03:56

By what i understand you want to have the overflow menu in the top action bar which is a custom xml file. You can actually mimic that overflow menu icon and the options list in the custom xml file if required. It is basically a hack to use popup windows with a list adapter to mimic the overflow menu behavior. Check the link: http://rajeshandroiddeveloper.blogspot.com/2013/07/android-popupwindow-example-in-listview.html

Hopefully this solves you problem.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 31 '13 at 02:34

So there is no real "good" way of having the action overflow button in the top of a split action bar menu. There are several ways that one could go about doing this.

Create a custom view for the top, have an image button that represents the action overflow menu icon and launch a pop up menu onClick to simulate the action overflow menu.
Create a regular (single) action bar and then create a custom view that will be at the bottom of the activity that will resemble the bottom of a split action bar. The action bar can get the action overflow menu if at-least one menu item is set to android:showAsAction = "never"

I personally went with option 2 because I could not find a suitable icon that represents the action overflow icon.

Possible to have action overflow icon in top action bar of split actionbar?

2 Answers2