Android: Defining all application menu items in one XML

Question

I am using ActionBarSherlock in my application, and a lot of my menu items are found in many different activities.

Right now I have to define them in each Activity's activity_menu.xml file, so for example

shows in 5 different xml files. Is there a way of defining all my application's menu items once in one xml file, and then for each activity select what menu items I want to show?

EDIT: I read about creating an activity that only implements menu function and then extending it, but this isn't an idle solution for me. Any way of doing what I described?

Hope I was clear, thanks

Answer 1

Yes there is a way, you need not declare in every activity. You need to have something called BaseActivity so that all other activities can be extended from that. Code example:

BaseActivity.java:

public class BaseActivity extends SherlockFragmentActivity {

@Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setTheme(Config.THEME);
        // set up action bar
        actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
        // sets device orientation
        setDeviceType(this);

        actionBar.setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

    }

@Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        MenuInflater inflater = getSupportMenuInflater();
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.aiwmain, menu);
        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }
}

@Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

        super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);

        switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.scanner:
                   //do something on menu click
                case R.id.location:
           //do something on menu click
        break;

        }

        return true;

    }

Now simply extend your other classes by BaseActivity:

public class HowToUseActivity extends BaseActivity {

}