Menu button is not present on ActionBar

Question

I want to build in my application an ActionBar with a button that makes the role of the old hardware menu button. I'm working on 4.0.3 platform with min sdk=8. The problem is i don't have the menu button in ActionBar and always have to press on emulator menu button to show it. Don't know what to do, there is surely a trick.

Menu:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
   <item
        android:id="@+id/menu_settings"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_settings"
       android:showAsAction="always"
        android:title="@string/menu_settings"/>
   <item android:id="@+id/menu_help"
        android:title="Help">
   </item>
</menu>

And prepare the menu in Java code like always:

 public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);
        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

I want a button in Actionbar that shows that menu. Possible?

Answer 1

The problem is i don't have the menu button in ActionBar and always have to press on emulator menu button to show it. Don't know what to do, there is surely a trick.

Not really.

The overflow menu affordance will only appear in the action bar on devices that lack an off-screen MENU button. This will be true for most tablets and many phones that originally shipped with Android 4.0 or higher.

For devices that do have a dedicated MENU button, that is used to bring up the overflow menu.