Android - Refresh Options Menu without calling invalidateOptionsMenu()

Question

Hello Android Developers,

I have seen a lot of question regarding the update of Options Menu. However, every answer says I have to call invalidateOptionsMenu().

My question is, is there any other way of updating the Options Menu without invoking the method invalidateOptionsMenu()?

Carlie

Is there a reason not to use invalidateOptionsMenu()? That's exactly what it's there for... – Sheridan

I've created a classA that extends Activity. Created classB that extends classA. classC (Invokes my XML activity) extends classC. – Glycerol

See https://mcmap.net/q/234261/-android-changing-option-menu-items-programmatically – Porphyritic

Actually, I have created the OptionsMenu, I just have to update the OptionsMenu dynamically. – Glycerol

I'm still not seeing why that precludes you using invalidateOptionsMenu(). @Porphyritic has an answer you could use, but I'm still not seeing the problem, I guess. – Sheridan

Actually, classC doesn't have the method invalidateOptionsMenu() – Glycerol

Plus, calling invalidateOptionsMenu() from superclass of superclass would break the encapsulation. Quoted from Skeet – Glycerol

Confirming. In my code the menu content is dependent on certain Model states and some of them are triggered in a deferred way through services work result. The logic of "onResults" could became hard to comprehend really quick and will require a lot of synchroniztion efforts. The onPrepareOptionsMenu solution helps to track all of that in a single place without any complications or fluidity impact as far as your menu changes are limited to hide/show/add/remove. Just KISS. – Loge

Answer 1

@Override
    public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

        menu.clear(); // Clear the menu first

            /* Add the menu items */

        return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

This solved the problem on updating the OptionsMenu without invoking the invalidateOptionsMenu()

Carlie

invalidateOptionsMenu calls onItemSelected of spinner in action bar i have to give a try for this! – Grad

this works! I can't use invalidateOptionsMenu because somehow after calling that, the toast that suppose to show up after long pressing menu item icon does not work anymore – Echidna

I cannot see how I could use your solution. Maybe you could help me on a similar problem that I am facing. #54757299 – Supramolecular