Question

usually learn best by studying working examples and hacking together bits and pieces
until I understand how everything works. I dont have much experience with ActionBars or ABS , but I found a working demo of a native ActionBar. I found here: https://github.com/johannilsson/android-actionbar

I got this demo AND the ABS library up and running in eclipse. My question now is how would I go about converting this to a ABS action bar OR recreate the equivalent using ABS ?( Just a simple starter ABS action bar I can get comfortable with, with several items that link to different activitys. )

Here is the Action Bar demo code:

package com.markupartist.android.actionbar.example;

import com.markupartist.android.widget.ActionBar;
import com.markupartist.android.widget.ActionBar.Action;
import com.markupartist.android.widget.ActionBar.IntentAction;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class HomeActivity extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        final ActionBar actionBar = (ActionBar) findViewById(R.id.actionbar);
        //actionBar.setHomeAction(new IntentAction(this, createIntent(this), R.drawable.ic_title_home_demo));
        actionBar.setTitle("Home");

        final Action shareAction = new IntentAction(this, createShareIntent(), R.drawable.ic_title_share_default);
        actionBar.addAction(shareAction);
        final Action otherAction = new IntentAction(this, new Intent(this, OtherActivity.class), R.drawable.ic_title_export_default);
        actionBar.addAction(otherAction);

        Button startProgress = (Button) findViewById(R.id.start_progress);
        startProgress.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                actionBar.setProgressBarVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            }
        });

        Button stopProgress = (Button) findViewById(R.id.stop_progress);
        stopProgress.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                actionBar.setProgressBarVisibility(View.GONE);
            }
        });

        Button removeActions = (Button) findViewById(R.id.remove_actions);
        removeActions.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                actionBar.removeAllActions();
            }
        });

        Button addAction = (Button) findViewById(R.id.add_action);
        addAction.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                actionBar.addAction(new Action() {
                    @Override
                    public void performAction(View view) {
                        Toast.makeText(HomeActivity.this, "Added action.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                    }
                    @Override
                    public int getDrawable() {
                        return R.drawable.ic_title_share_default;
                    }
                });
            }
        });

        Button removeAction = (Button) findViewById(R.id.remove_action);
        removeAction.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                int actionCount = actionBar.getActionCount();
                actionBar.removeActionAt(actionCount - 1);
                Toast.makeText(HomeActivity.this, "Removed action." , Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            }
        });

        Button removeShareAction = (Button) findViewById(R.id.remove_share_action);
        removeShareAction.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                actionBar.removeAction(shareAction);
            }
        });
    }

    public static Intent createIntent(Context context) {
        Intent i = new Intent(context, HomeActivity.class);
        i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
        return i;
    }

    private Intent createShareIntent() {
        final Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
        intent.setType("text/plain");
        intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Shared from the ActionBar widget.");
        return Intent.createChooser(intent, "Share");
    }
}

Answer 1

ActionBarSherlock is an API-complete backport of the API 14 & 15 action bar which is part of Android.

If you are new to the library I suggest you first attempt to learn how to use the native action bar. Only after you are familiar with using it, switch to using ABS.

The switch will be incredibly easy as it mostly consists of these three things:

• Changing a few imports (e.g., ActionBar, MenuItem) from android.app to com.actionbarsherlock.app and android.view to com.actionbarsherlock.view.
• Changing your theme from Theme.Holo to Theme.Sherlock (or .Light or .Light.DarkActionBar)
• Changing your activity to extend from SherlockActivity instead of Activity.
• Switching calls to getActionBar() to getSupportActionBar().

Easy as pie!

Also, it should be noted that your demo is not of the native action bar, but of a third-party library which emulates an action bar from before it was built in to the OS.