Android Lollipop, add popup menu from title in toolbar

Question

I'm unable to see how adding a popup menu from the title is accomplished like is shown in many of the material design examples. Any help would be much appreciated.

Quinacrine

I think it potentially could be setMenu, but I don't see it in the documentation yet. cl.ly/image/303N3G0o1z1V documentation I'm viewing: developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/widget/… – Quinacrine

Answer 1

You're going to need to add a Spinner to the Toolbar:

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:background="?attr/colorPrimary">

    <Spinner
            android:id="@+id/spinner_nav"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

You will then need to disable the default title:

Toolbar toolbar = findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

You can then retrieve and setup the Spinner as needed in your Activity/Fragment.

Halleyhalli

Could you please have a look at my question #26756378 ? – Cocklebur

Can we put the spinner on the right side of the Toolbar ? And how to set the default text/value of the spinner ? – Dasheen

I also added spinner to toolbar, but dropdown items are colored dark, while overflow menu is colored white. – Hennie

helionprime you must use getSupportActionBar().getThemedContext() with SpinnerAdapter.createFromResource(context, ...) – Fastidious

...I used this and it noted to set the android:minSdkVersion to 21. Does that mean if a user has not upgraded to API 21, Android 5.0, then they cannot use the app? What do we do then? – Hurryscurry

No, you have to use the support library to provide compatibility. – Phonics

There were some changes in API 22 with AppCompat library - now whe using Factory2 with inflater there seems to be some theming inside the Toolbar itself which is colliding with your coloring. Not sure if using Factory(1) is the only way to disallow this? – Beeman

5.1 doesn't displays the down arrow head !! android:dropDownVerticalOffset="-52dp" for Kitkat and below android:dropDownVerticalOffset="0dp" for LollyPop also failed – Labio

@Fastidious how to deal with that if Toolbar is being used in the fragment? – Basenji

Answer 2

I came across this question while I was trying to find a solution to prevent the popup to overlay the spinner and I would like to leave here an alternative solution to this question as its possible to add the spinner to the toolbar using the menu.xml as well

activity_main.xml

<LinearLayout 
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">

<android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:fitsSystemWindows="true">

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
        android:background="?attr/colorAccent" />

</android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

 <!-- Other layout widgets -->

</LinearLayout>

menu_main.xml

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

<item
    android:id="@+id/spinner"
    android:title="Spinning"
    app:actionViewClass="android.widget.Spinner"
    app:showAsAction="always" />

<!-- Other items -->

</menu>

Your Activity

It will be necessary to override the onCreateOptionMenu() method, then use getMenuInflater() to inflate the menu file created earlier.

You will also need to get the Spinner item and set an adapter to it as you would normally do.

   @Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);

    //Get Spinner item from menu

    MenuItem spinnerMenuItem = menu.findItem(R.id.spinner);
    final Spinner spinner = (Spinner) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(spinnerMenuItem);

    //Set adapter whichever way you prefer (from the resource or manually)

    final ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> spinnerAdapter = ArrayAdapter
            .createFromResource(this, R.array.items_array, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
    spinnerAdapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
    spinner.setAdapter(spinnerAdapter);

    return true;

}

Style.xml

Finally, if you want to customize your spinner

<resources>

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
    <item name="android:spinnerStyle">@style/spinner_style</item>
</style>

<style name="spinner_style" parent="Widget.AppCompat.Spinner">
    <item name="android:dropDownVerticalOffset">40dip</item>
    <!--<item name="android:dropDownHorizontalOffset">0dip</item>-->
    <item name="overlapAnchor">false</item>

    <!--Other customizations-->

</style>

Shrier

Is there a way to replace the title in the toolbar with this spinner defined as a menu item? – Shermanshermie