Question

I would like to detect if the phone running my Android application uses hardware buttons or virtual buttons (Galaxy Nexus).

Is there a way to get this information?

Answer 1

Since API level 14 you can use ViewConfiguration.hasPermanentMenuKey() to detect if a device has a permanent menu key.

Generally, virtual and physical buttons are mutually exclusive, so this would help you. Example:

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

    // ...
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        boolean hasPermanentMenuKey = ViewConfiguration.get(this).hasPermanentMenuKey();
        boolean hasVirtualKeys = !hasPermanentMenuKey;
        String message = hasVirtualKeys ? "This device has virtual menu keys" : "This device has physical keys";
        Toast.makeText(this, message, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    }
    // ...

}

WARNING: There are some cases in which this won’t help you. For example, say a manufacturer decides to use virtual keys along with physical menu keys; then this method wouldn’t help you. Another case would be if the phone has no virtual keys and no physical menu key (e.g. Samsung S5).