Is it possible to grey out (not just disable) a MenuItem in Android?

android menu menuitem
Waynn Lue picture Waynn Lue · Mar 10, 2012 · Viewed 33.5k times · Source

There's a question for the same functionality on Blackberry, and a few different threads referred to this bug (which has since been closed without resolution as far as I can tell), but I haven't found one specifically for Android.

I'm calling setEnabled(false) on certain MenuItems based on some state, but they visually look the same. I'd like them to be offset in some way, so that the user knows that the option currently isn't available -- is there any way to do that?

Answer

Frank picture Frank · Oct 17, 2013

On all android versions, easiest way to use this to SHOW a menu action icon as disabled AND make it FUNCTION as disabled as well:

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

    MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_my_item);

    if (myItemShouldBeEnabled) {
        item.setEnabled(true);
        item.getIcon().setAlpha(255);
    } else {
        // disabled
        item.setEnabled(false);
        item.getIcon().setAlpha(130);
    }
}

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