Menu

Menu contains the actions shown by an Activity options menu, including toolbar actions and overflow items.

Build the menu from the Activity lifecycle, update state-dependent items before display, and handle selections separately.

Use it when…

Use a menu for a small set of screen-level actions such as Refresh, Search, Share, or Settings.

Keep primary workflow actions in the screen itself when hiding them in overflow would make the interface harder to discover.

How it behaves

onCreateOptionsMenu(menu:) is the normal place to create items. Android can call onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu:) again before display, which makes it suitable for state-dependent changes.

Selections arrive through onOptionsItemSelected(item:).

Examples

Add toolbar and overflow actions

override func onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu) -> Bool {
    menu.add("Search").showAsAction(.always)
    menu.add("Settings").showAsAction(.never)
    return true
}

Rebuild state-dependent items

override func onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu: Menu) -> Bool {
    menu.clear()
    menu.add(isConnected ? "Disconnect" : "Connect")
    return true
}

Add a submenu

override func onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu) -> Bool {
    let more = menu.addSubMenu("More")
    more?.add("Help")
    more?.add("About")
    return true
}

Methods

Add an item

Use add(_:) for a title-only item, or the identified form when later code needs a stable id.

menu.add("Refresh")
menu.add(groupId: 0, itemId: 100, order: 0, title: "Settings")

Add a submenu

let more = menu.addSubMenu("More")
more?.add("Help")

Clear or find items

menu.clear()

let settings = menu.findItem(100)