How to change the background color of Action Bar's Option Menu in Android 4.2?

Question

I'd like to change the background color of the option (overflow) menu in Android 4.2. I have tried all the methods but it is still showing the default color set by the theme. I used the following code & XML configs.

MainActivity.java

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@SuppressLint("NewApi")
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    getActionBar().setIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher);     
    getActionBar().setTitle("Sample Menu");
    getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new 
               ColorDrawable(Color.parseColor("#33B5E5"))); 

    int titleId = Resources.getSystem().getIdentifier("action_bar_title", "id", "android");
    TextView titleText = (TextView)findViewById(titleId);
    titleText.setTextColor(Color.parseColor("#ffffff"));

}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    setMenuBackground();
    return true;
}

protected void setMenuBackground(){                     
    // Log.d(TAG, "Enterting setMenuBackGround");  
    getLayoutInflater().setFactory( new Factory() { 

        @Override
        public View onCreateView(String name, Context context,
                AttributeSet attrs) {
            if ( name.equalsIgnoreCase( "com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItemView" ) ) {
                try { // Ask our inflater to create the view  
                    LayoutInflater f = getLayoutInflater();  
                    final View view = f.createView( name, null, attrs );  
                    /* The background gets refreshed each time a new item is added the options menu.  
                    * So each time Android applies the default background we need to set our own  
                    * background. This is done using a thread giving the background change as runnable 
                    * object */
                    new Handler().post( new Runnable() {  
                        public void run () {  
                            // sets the background color   
                            view.setBackgroundResource( R.color.menubg);
                            // sets the text color              
                            ((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
                            // sets the text size              
                            ((TextView) view).setTextSize(18);
            }
                    } );  
                return view;
            }
        catch ( InflateException e ) {}
        catch ( ClassNotFoundException e ) {}  
    } 
            return null;
        }});
}

}

Menu.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

<item
    android:id="@+id/action_settings"
    android:icon="@drawable/menu"
    android:showAsAction="always"
    android:title="@string/action_settings">
    <menu>
        <item
            android:id="@+id/item1"             
            android:showAsAction="always"
            android:title="@string/item1" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/item2"             
            android:showAsAction="always"
            android:title="@string/item2" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/item3"
            android:showAsAction="always"
            android:title="@string/item3" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/item4"
            android:showAsAction="always"
            android:title="@string/item4" />
    </menu>
</item>

</menu>

color.xml

<color name="menubg">#33B5E5</color>

The above setMenuBackground is not taking any effect:

In the above picture, I want to change the menu background from black to the blue color in the Action Bar. How can I achieve this, and what I did do wrong?

Answer 1

In case people are still visiting for a working solution, here is what worked for me:-- This is for Appcompat support library. This is in continuation to ActionBar styling explained here

Following is the styles.xml file.

<resources>
    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
        <!-- This is the styling for action bar -->
        <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <!--To change the text styling of options menu items</item>-->
        <item name="android:itemTextAppearance">@style/MyActionBar.MenuTextStyle</item>
        <!--To change the background of options menu-->
        <item name="android:itemBackground">@color/skyBlue</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
        <item name="background">@color/red</item>
        <item name="titleTextStyle">@style/MyActionBarTitle</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBarTitle" parent="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/white</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBar.MenuTextStyle"
        parent="style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/red</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
        <item name="android:textSize">25sp</item>
    </style>
</resources>

and this is how it looks--MenuItem background color is skyblue and MenuItem text color is pink with textsize as 25sp:--