Question

My android application targets the latest platform. I am new to the platform, and read bit conflicting information on actionbar. The way I was using it for navigation was.

menu.xml

<menu>
            <item android:id="@+id/action_sort_size"
                  android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_sort_by_size"
                  android:title="@string/action_barabc"
                  android:onClick="abc" />
            <item android:id="@+id/action_sort_alpha"
....

In my activity

@Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
        return true;
    }
public void abc(MenuItem item) {
//...
}

this works, but the back/up navigation is not working correctly. could be unrelated, still like to confirm.

But, I also see implementation like here
where it switches on item.

@Override
  public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
    case R.id.menuitem1:
      Toast.makeText(this, "Menu Item 1 selected", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT)
          .show();
      break;
    case R.id.menuitem2:
....
}

Which is the better approach?

Answer 1

The better approach, in my opinion, is the switch approach. There aren’t many reasons why, but I’ll list them:

• The code is centralized. You don’t have x amount of methods that basically do the same thing. It keeps your code more readable; it is “cleaner”. You also get a default statement using the switch, this can help if you mess up and forget to make a case specifically for an element in the layout.
  If you really wanted to have a centralized method using xml, you would have onClick reference the same method and check the ids of the View parameter. Which is essentially the same asonOptionsItemSelected.
• It is a part of the API. The Android engineers would not have made it a part of the API if they didn’t want the developer to use it. Yes the XML is techinally API, but XML should be used more for layouts and visuals, not for logic.
• Everyone uses it. All the tutorials I have seen and everyone’s code uses this method. It is now more of a convention.

It’s largely personal, but if it looks like it’s a convention, and everyone uses it, I’d adhere to it. Especially if you’re working as part of a team. Different coding styles for such arbritrary things should be avoided.

And concerning your back/up navigation, it shouldn’t make a difference which way you do it, since you have to implement the same code to get that navigation type.