How can I add a custom item to a NavigationView with a menu layout?

The actionLayout attribute is now supported in Android Support Library 23.1:

NavigationView provides a convenient way to build a navigation drawer, including the ability to creating menu items using a menu XML file. We’ve expanded the functionality possible with the ability to set custom views for items via app:actionLayout or using MenuItemCompat.setActionView().

So the code in the question should just work now.

NavigationView is a subclass of FrameLayout, which can have multiple children:

You can, however, add multiple children to a FrameLayout and control their position within the FrameLayout by assigning gravity to each child, using the android:layout_gravity attribute.

That means you can add a custom view to your NavigationView:

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
    app:menu="@menu/side_menu">

    <LinearLayout 
        android:orientation="horizontal" 
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="200dp"
        android:layout_gravity="bottom">

        <android.support.v7.widget.SwitchCompat
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:text="night_mode"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</android.support.design.widget.NavigationView>

create a layout with switchcompat and mention it in menu item as

<item android:id="@+id/notification"
        android:title="Notification"
        app:actionLayout="@layout/notify" />`

then notify layout add this

<android.support.v7.widget.SwitchCompat
    android:id="@+id/switch_compat"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="10dp"
    android:checked="false"
    android:onClick="notify"/>

onclick is the keyPoint,implement handler in your Activity,then it will work.

I had the same problem and found that NavigationView behaves differently depending on:

• Whether you set the android:title and android:icon attributes on item or not
• What kind of view your action layout contains (e.g. TextView or others)

Not setting the attributes worked for completely customizing the item:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:showIn="navigation_view">

    <item
        android:id="@+id/nav_custom"
        android:title="@null"
        app:actionLayout="@layout/nav_drawer_switch" />
</menu>

(Note that you can also just not set android:title, but that results in a warning in Android Studio.)

The result:

(This is with version 27.1.1 of com.android.support:design, not sure about other versions.)