Force overflow menu in ActionBarSherlock

Question

I want the 4.0+ overflow menu to be used on pre ICS devices (2.3 - 2.1). I'm using HoloEverywhere with ActionBarSherlock.

I tried the following solution:

ActionBarSherlock & HoloEverywhere - Forcing Overflow?

but it does not work because absForceOverflow does not exist. Was it removed in the newest version or something? I've checked the R files of both ABS and HE library projects and the field is simply not there.

My app's theme is set to @style/Holo.Theme.Sherlock.Light and that is the theme that i was trying to inherit from and add the absForceOverflow parameter set to true.

Answer 1

Beginning from ActionbarSherlock 4.2 we've lost the ability to manage overflow menu visibility. To make it working, you need combine 2 approaches:

1. To force menu visibility for Android 3.x (honeycomb) and upper, you need use this hack + add check Android version:

   public static final int DEVICE_VERSION   = Build.VERSION.SDK_INT;
   public static final int DEVICE_HONEYCOMB = Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB;
   if (DEVICE_VERSION >= DEVICE_HONEYCOMB)
       // Code from answer above
   

2. Open menu for pre-honeycomb devices:

   • Open ActionBarSherlock/src/com/actionbarsherlock/internal/view/menu/ActionMenuPresenter.java, go to method reserveOverflow

   • Replace the original with:

     public static boolean reserveOverflow(Context context) { return true; }

   This will force menu showing ...

   • but when click on menu button menu popup not showing. To achieve this we need override this in your activity class:

     @Override
     public boolean onKeyUp(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
         if (DEVICE_VERSION < DEVICE_HONEYCOMB) {
             if (event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_UP &&
                 keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_MENU) {
                 openOptionsMenu();
                 return true;
             }
         }
         return super.onKeyUp(keyCode, event);
     }
     

After this actions you should have absolutely working overflow action bar menu for all Android versions.