CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androiddirectory
Martin
Martin

Reputation: 453

Android - difference between res/menu and res/layout?

I am fairly new to android development, as you probably can tell by my question. I discovered that I have both a res/menu folder and a res/layout folder. They both contain XML files for each activity. But I never used the res/menu folder conciously! I do all of my styling in the res/layout. What do I do in the xml files in res/menu then?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 10403

Answers (3)

Ariel Rakovitsky
Ariel Rakovitsky

Reputation: 110

A menu in Android is what is pulled up at the bottom of the screen when the menu bottom is pressed. This menu is created in your activity's class in the onCreateOptionsMenu class:

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

As you can see, R.menu.main is being "inflated" in this case. R.menu.main is simply the file named main.xml under your res/menu folder. A sample menu xml file would look something like this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

    <item
        android:id="@+id/menu_item_1"
        android:title="Menu Item">
    </item>
 </menu>

This xml file produces a menu with one clickable option: Menu Item

An android layout file is used to create the layout of your activity. In a sample onCreate method:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
}

setContentView() asks for the id of a layout file. R.layout.main is a file located in res/layout with the name main.xml. This code sets the layout of this activity to whatever is specified in main.xml.

Almost all Android IDEs, including Eclipse, create both a layout and a menu folder by default.

Upvotes: 1

S.Thiongane
S.Thiongane

Reputation: 6905

The menu folder, as explicit as its name, is used to store xml files used for managing menu with xml instead of doing that programmatically.

A simple and good tuto for that

Upvotes: 1

wvdz
wvdz

Reputation: 16641

It's intended for use with a menuInflater to create a menu in the onCreateOptionsMenu method of your activity.

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

For this example, main.xml could look like this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

    <item
        android:id="@+id/menu_item_1"
        android:title="@string/menu_title2">
    </item>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/menu_item_2"
        android:title="@string/menu_title2">
    </item>
</menu>

And the action to take when one of the menu items is clicked can be implemented by overriding the onOptionsItemSelected method, perhaps like this:

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item)
{
    switch (item.getItemId())
    {
    case (R.id.menu_item_1):
        this.startActivity(new Intent(this, MyFirstActivity.class));
        return true;
    case (R.id.menu_item_2):
        this.startActivity(new Intent(this, MySecondActivity.class));
        return true;
    default:
        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

Upvotes: 8

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