Question

I am working with action bars for the first time and would like to know for certain examples that show how to add new actions/buttons to the action bar and an intent on each button to load other classes.

A small code snippet with an xml layout would be of much help.

Answer 1

The most simple approach is to use the menu resource and use an showAsAction attribute for each item. Here is an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <item
        android:id="@+id/item_check_all"
        android:title="@string/menu_check_all"
        android:titleCondensed="@string/menu_check_all_cond"
        android:icon="@drawable/checked"
        android:visible="true"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    ></item>

    <item
        android:id="@+id/item_uncheck_all"
        android:title="@string/menu_uncheck_all"
        android:titleCondensed="@string/menu_uncheck_all_cond"
        android:icon="@drawable/unchecked"
        android:visible="true"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    ></item>

    <item
        android:id="@+id/item_add_selected_reservations"
        android:title="@string/menu_add_reservations"
        android:titleCondensed="@string/menu_add_reservations_cond"
        android:icon="@drawable/calendar_plus"
        android:visible="true"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:showAsAction="always"
    ></item>

    <item
        android:id="@+id/item_open_calendar"
        android:title="@string/menu_open_calendar"
        android:titleCondensed="@string/menu_open_calendar_cond"
        android:icon="@drawable/calendar"
        android:visible="true"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:showAsAction="never"
    ></item>

</menu>

Items which have an “ifRoom” specified are added to the action bar if there is space available. Other possible values are “always” and “never” with the obvious meaning.

This will even work with the compatibility library.

Here is more info: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html