Question

For common Android icons (such as context menu icons) I typically copy the standard Android icons into my project. I realized recently that you can also get those icons from the system using android.R.drawable.blablabla. So my question is, is there any reason to prefer one approach over the other?

And if using the system ones is better, how do you access them in XML?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can access them by prepending ‘@android’, i.e.:

<Image android:src="@android:drawable/ic_menu_add" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_width="wrap_content"/>

If you use the system resources you’ll have less control about how exactly the ressource will look like. You will get the ressource installed on the current device, and that differs throughout devices, manufactures and android version.