Custom view for Menu Item

Question

I need to have dynamic Menu Item, a circle of user defined color, like this:

touching this menu item will open a color picker.

Now, I have sample ColorPickerIcon which extends View

public class ColorPickerIcon extends View {  private Paint mPaint; private int mColor;  private final int mRadius = 20;  public ColorPickerIcon(Context context) {     super(context);      mColor = Color.BLACK;     mPaint = createPaint(); }  public ColorPickerIcon(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {     super(context, attrs);      mColor = Color.BLACK;     mPaint = createPaint(); }  @Override protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {     super.onDraw(canvas);     canvas.drawCircle(0, 0, mRadius, mPaint); }  public void setPaintColor(int color) {     mColor = color; }  private Paint createPaint() {      Paint temp = new Paint();     temp.setAntiAlias(true);     temp.setStyle(Paint.Style.STROKE);     temp.setStrokeJoin(Paint.Join.ROUND);      temp.setStrokeWidth(6f);     temp.setColor(mColor);      return temp;  }  } 

and menu.xml

<item     android:id="@+id/menu_pick_color"     android:title="@string/pick_color"     yourapp:showAsAction="always"     yourapp:actionViewClass="com.example.widgets.ColorPickerIcon"/>  <item     android:id="@+id/menu_clear"     android:icon="@null"     android:title="@string/clear"     yourapp:showAsAction="always"/>  <item     android:id="@+id/menu_save"     android:icon="@null"     android:title="@string/save"     yourapp:showAsAction="always"/> 

But it doesn't work this way, neither can I instantiate the class nor it's rendered. Is there a way to use custom class and custom dynamic view as Menu Item?

Answer 1

What you need to do is create a layout file with the view that you want for the item, the when you declare the item on the menu, assign the layout like this:

<item     android:id="@+id/menu_pick_color"     android:title="@string/pick_color"     app:showAsAction="always"     app:actionLayout="@layout/my_custom_item"/> 

And that's it!

EDIT:

To access the custom item and modify it's color at runtime you can do this.

In your activity (or fragment) override the onPrepareOptionsMenu (Assuming you already inflated your menu with 'onCreateOptionsMenu')

@Override public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {      //Get a reference to your item by id     MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_pick_color);      //Here, you get access to the view of your item, in this case, the layout of the item has a FrameLayout as root view but you can change it to whatever you use     FrameLayout rootView = (FrameLayout)item.getActionView();      //Then you access to your control by finding it in the rootView     YourControlClass control = (YourControlClass) rootView.findViewById(R.id.control_id);      //And from here you can do whatever you want with your control      return true; }