How do I programmatically check if the menu of my activity is showing at a particular moment?

Question

An Android device configuration change (for example "slide the hard keyboard back in") will always call PhoneWindow.onConfigurationChanged(), which in turn, will call reopenMenu(). This will cause the menu of the currently running activity to be reopened, in case it is showing.

I have a lock on my menu implemented in my onPrepareOptionsMenu() override. The user must enter a code each time they want to see the menu. I don't want the user to be asked to enter the code again, while the menu is still up just because of a configuration change. Thus, I would like to know, is there any way I can check if the menu of current foreground activity is already showing? Knowing this, I could bypass asking for the access code if the menu is already up.

My custom workaround implementation is to use my own flag menuShowing, which I set in onPrepareOptionsMenu and reset in onOptionsItemSelected and in onKeyDown if the back button is clicked.

EDIT: It appears a screen orientation configuration change does not trigger this behavior. A hard keyboard slide however, does.

Answer 1

Until someone comes up with a nicer 'one call' answer, here is the custom workaround implementation that I mention in the question, with help from Sam's tips, in case someone needs the same functionality:

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    if (showingMenu) {
        // The menu button was clicked or the hard keyboard was
        // slid open/closed while the menu was already showing
        return true;
    }
    // Otherwise, either the menu was clicked or openOptionsMenu() was called
    if (codeEntered) {
        // Code was entered and then openOptionsMenu() was called
        showingMenu = true;
        // Menu will now be shown
        return true;
    } else {
        // The menu button was clicked, ask for code
        askForCode();
        // Don't show menu yet
        return false;
    }
}    

@Override
public void onOptionsMenuClosed(Menu menu) {
    showingMenu = false;
    codeEntered = false;
}

private void askForCode() {
    codeEntered = getUserInput();
    if (codeEntered)
        openOptionsMenu();
}

getUserInput() actually occurs with the help of an AlertDialog and an EditText with an attached TextWatcher but the implementation details exceed the scope of this question, unless someone is interested.