How to add a Dropdown item on the action bar

In my Android Honeycomb application I use Tabs as the navigation style. I would like to add one item next to the overflow button, but I want that item to be a dropdown list, and the user will be able to select an option there, but not related to navigation. What is the easiest way since I'm using mActionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);

Is it possible to do it without using a custom view?

Solution 1:

First option:

menu/options.xml:

<item
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_sort"
    android:showAsAction="ifRoom">
    <menu>
        <item
            android:id="@+id/menuSortNewest"
            android:title="Sort by newest" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/menuSortRating"
            android:title="Sort by rating" />
    </menu>
</item>

Second option:

menu/options.xml:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/menuSort"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
        android:actionLayout="@layout/action_sort"  />
</menu>

layout/action_sort.xml:

<Spinner xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:background="@drawable/ic_menu_refresh"
    android:entries="@array/order" />

Docs for menu resources - http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/menu-resource.html

Solution 2:

Absolutely the best and and the simplest answer I found so far is here.

Basically, no need for custom layout in this case. Just set the actonViewClass:

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

  <item android:id="@+id/spinner"
    yourapp:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    yourapp:actionViewClass="android.widget.Spinner" /> <== this is all that's required
</menu>

And then handle it in onCreateOptionsMenu, as usual:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_layout, menu);
    MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.spinner);
    Spinner spinner = (Spinner) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(item); // get the spinner
    spinner.setAdapter(adapter); 
    spinner.setOnItemSelectedListener(onItemSelectedListener); 

This is by far the simplest and cleanest solution. Credits to François Poyer, the original author.