How to add "menu" indicator next to Action Bar's app icon?

Question

At least Gmail and Youtube Android apps use a side menu (navigation drawer?) that opens by swiping, or by clicking the app icon (home button):

Is the menu indicator / icon in the screenshot above a ready-made part of Android SDK? (Or a custom icon Google uses in their apps?) In any case, what's the easiest way to get your home button to look like that, i.e., like it opens a menu?

(targetSdkVersion 18; minSdkVersion 14)

Resolution

Finally got it working. What was missing for me was 1) the actual icon and 2) deferred call to syncState() on the ActionBarDrawerToggle.

Answer 1

To create similar implementation / look in your application you should use ActionBarDrawerToggle and set your custom icon as indicator next to ActionBar home button. For example :

import android.app.ActionBar;
import android.support.v4.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle;
import android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout;

private void setUpDrawerToggle(){
    ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
    actionBar.setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);
    actionBar.setHomeButtonEnabled(true);

    // ActionBarDrawerToggle ties together the the proper interactions
    // between the navigation drawer and the action bar app icon.
    mDrawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle(
            this,                             /* host Activity */
            mDrawerLayout,                    /* DrawerLayout object */
            R.drawable.ic_drawer,             /* nav drawer image to replace 'Up' caret */
            R.string.navigation_drawer_open,  /* "open drawer" description for accessibility */
            R.string.navigation_drawer_close  /* "close drawer" description for accessibility */
    ) {
        @Override
        public void onDrawerClosed(View drawerView) {
            invalidateOptionsMenu(); // calls onPrepareOptionsMenu()
        }

        @Override
        public void onDrawerOpened(View drawerView) {
            invalidateOptionsMenu(); // calls onPrepareOptionsMenu()
        }
    };

    // Defer code dependent on restoration of previous instance state.
    // NB: required for the drawer indicator to show up!
    mDrawerLayout.post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            mDrawerToggle.syncState();
        }
    });

    mDrawerLayout.setDrawerListener(mDrawerToggle);
}

Where R.drawable.ic_drawer is actually the icon to use as indicator. You can find it in Android Asset Studio; see Navigation Drawer Indicator.

References

1. ActionBarDrawerToggle
2. Creating a Navigation Drawer