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I want to change one of my Action Bar Menu Tab Labels depending on the state of a variable in my code. I found the following that describes how to use onPrepareMenuOptions() for this purpose, but my problem is that onPrepareMenuOptions() is being called after I change the variable that controls the label state.

How can I alter a MenuItem on the Options Menu on Android?

As specific as I can be, I have a dialogFragment that's brought up when the user selects the relevant Action Bar item. The dialog allows the user to change a parameter, and depending on value selected, I want to change the AB item label (but not the code associated with either the AB item or the dialogFragment it starts up.

Is there something I should be doing (perhaps in the dialog's onDismiss() method) to force my application to call onPrepareMenuOptions()??

In response to Nate's request, my activity has the following code:

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu (Menu menu)
{
    getMenuInflater().inflate (R.menu.app_menu, menu);

    this.abMenu = menu;
    this.varTab = abMenu.findItem (R.id.menu_varTab);
        //  Need to be able to change this label

    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu (menu);
}

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu (Menu menu)
{
    varTab.setTitle (0 == importantVariable
        ?   ("Set Var")
        :   ("Set Var\n" + String.valueOf (importantVariable)) + " units");

    return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu (menu);
}

Following good advice, I added act.invalidateOptionsMenu() to the onDismiss() method of the dialogFragment associated with this menu item, and now the onPrepareOptionsMenu() is called when it should.

Community
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Rich
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2 Answers2

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On Android 2.3.x and lower, the system calls onPrepareOptionsMenu() each time the user opens the options menu (presses the Menu button).

On Android 3.0 and higher, the options menu is considered to always be open when menu items are presented in the action bar. When an event occurs and you want to perform a menu update, you must call invalidateOptionsMenu() to request that the system call onPrepareOptionsMenu().

Martin
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  • I'm using Android 4.0 -- probably should've mentioned that. Once I added invalidateOptionsMenu() to my dialog's onDismiss() method, it worked like a charm. Thanks. – Rich Jan 02 '14 at 17:37
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I believe - if you are using tabs in your action bar, that something like this should work:

bar.getTabAt(0).setText("Some new Sequence");
abatishchev
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Nathaniel D. Waggoner
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