Add menus

Menus are a common user interface component in many types of apps. To provide a familiar and consistent user experience, use the Menu APIs to present user actions and other options in your activities.

An image showing an example of overflow menu — **Figure 1.** A menu triggered by an icon tap, appearing below the overflow menu icon.

This document shows how to create the three fundamental types of menus or action presentations on all versions of Android:

Options menu and app bar

The options menu is the primary collection of menu items for an activity. It's where you place actions that have a global impact on the app, such as "Search," "Compose email," and "Settings."

See the Create an options menu section.

Context menu and contextual action mode

A context menu is a floating menu that appears when the user performs a touch & hold on an element. It provides actions that affect the selected content or context frame.

The contextual action mode displays action items that affect the selected content in a bar at the top of the screen and lets the user select multiple items.

See the Create a contextual menu section.

Popup menu

A popup menu displays a vertical list of items that's anchored to the view that invokes the menu. It's good for providing an overflow of actions that relate to specific content or to provide options for the second part of a command. Actions in a popup menu don't directly affect the corresponding content—that's what contextual actions are for. Rather, the popup menu is for extended actions that relate to regions of content in your activity.

See the Create a popup menu section.

Define a menu in XML

For all menu types, Android provides a standard XML format to define menu items. Instead of building a menu in your activity's code, define a menu and all its items in an XML menu resource. You can then inflate the menu resource—loading it as a Menu object—in your activity or fragment.

Using a menu resource is good practice for the following reasons:

It's easier to visualize the menu structure in XML.
It separates the content for the menu from your app's behavioral code.
It lets you create alternative menu configurations for different platform versions, screen sizes, and other configurations by leveraging the app resources framework.

To define a menu, create an XML file inside your project's res/menu/ directory and build the menu with the following elements:

<menu>: Defines a Menu, which is a container for menu items. A <menu> element must be the root node for the file, and it can hold one or more <item> and <group> elements.
<item>: Creates a MenuItem, which represents a single item in a menu. This element can contain a nested <menu> element to create a submenu.
<group>: An optional, invisible container for <item> elements. It lets you categorize menu items so they share properties, such as active state and visibility. For more information, see the Create a menu group section.

Here's an example menu named game_menu.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/new_game"
          android:icon="@drawable/ic_new_game"
          android:title="@string/new_game"
          app:showAsAction="ifRoom"/>
    <item android:id="@+id/help"
          android:icon="@drawable/ic_help"
          android:title="@string/help" />
</menu>

The <item> element supports several attributes you can use to define an item's appearance and behavior. The items in the preceding menu include the following attributes:

android:id: A resource ID that's unique to the item, which lets the app recognize the item when the user selects it.
android:icon: A reference to a drawable to use as the item's icon.
android:title: A reference to a string to use as the item's title.
android:showAsAction: The specification for when and how this item appears as an action item in the app bar.

These are the most important attributes you use, but there are many more available. For information about all the supported attributes, see the Menu resource documentation.

You can add a submenu to an item in any menu by adding a <menu> element as the child of an <item>. Submenus are useful when your app has a lot of functions that can be organized into topics, like items in a PC app's menu bar—such as File, Edit, and View. See the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/file"
          android:title="@string/file" >
        <!-- "file" submenu -->
        <menu>
            <item android:id="@+id/create_new"
                  android:title="@string/create_new" />
            <item android:id="@+id/open"
                  android:title="@string/open" />
        </menu>
    </item>
</menu>

To use the menu in your activity, _inflate_ the menu resource, converting the XML resource into a programmable object using MenuInflater.inflate(). The following sections show how to inflate a menu for each menu type.

The options menu, like the one shown in figure 1, is where you include actions and other options that are relevant to the current activity context, such as "Search," "Compose email," and "Settings."

An image showing the app bar for the Google Sheets app — **Figure 2.** The Google Sheets app, showing several buttons, including the action overflow button.

You can declare items for the options menu from your Activity subclass or a Fragment subclass. If both your activity and your fragments declare items for the options menu, the items are combined in the UI. The activity's items appear first, followed by those of each fragment, in the order in which the fragments are added to the activity. If necessary, you can reorder the menu items with the android:orderInCategory attribute in each <item> you need to move.

To specify the options menu for an activity, override onCreateOptionsMenu(). Fragments provide their own onCreateOptionsMenu() callback. In this method, you can inflate your menu resource, defined in XML, into the Menu provided in the callback. This is shown in the following example:

Kotlin

override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean {
    val inflater: MenuInflater = menuInflater
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.game_menu, menu)
    return true
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.game_menu, menu);
    return true;
}

You can also add menu items using add() and retrieve items with findItem() to revise their properties with MenuItem APIs.

Handle click events

When the user selects an item from the options menu, including action items in the app bar, the system calls your activity's onOptionsItemSelected() method. This method passes the MenuItem selected. You can identify the item by calling getItemId(), which returns the unique ID for the menu item, defined by the android:id attribute in the menu resource or with an integer given to the add() method. You can match this ID against known menu items to perform the appropriate action.

Kotlin

override fun onOptionsItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
    // Handle item selection.
    return when (item.itemId) {
        R.id.new_game -> {
            newGame()
            true
        }
        R.id.help -> {
            showHelp()
            true
        }
        else -> super.onOptionsItemSelected(item)
    }
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    // Handle item selection.
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.new_game:
            newGame();
            return true;
        case R.id.help:
            showHelp();
            return true;
        default:
            return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

When you successfully handle a menu item, return true. If you don't handle the menu item, call the superclass implementation of onOptionsItemSelected(). The default implementation returns false.

If your activity includes fragments, the system first calls onOptionsItemSelected() for the activity, then for each fragment in the order the fragments are added, until one returns true or all fragments are called.

Tip: If your app contains multiple activities and some of them provide the same options menu, consider creating an activity that implements only the onCreateOptionsMenu() and onOptionsItemSelected() methods. Then extend this class for each activity that shares the same options menu. This way, you can manage one set of code for handling menu actions, and each descendant class inherits the menu behaviors. If you want to add menu items to one of the descendant activities, override >onCreateOptionsMenu() in that activity. Call super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu) so the original menu items are created, then add new menu items with menu.add(). You can also override the superclass's behavior for individual menu items.

Change menu items at runtime

After the system calls onCreateOptionsMenu(), it retains an instance of the Menu you populate and doesn't call onCreateOptionsMenu() again unless the menu is invalidated. However, use onCreateOptionsMenu() only to create the initial menu state and not to make changes during the activity lifecycle.

If you want to modify the options menu based on events that occur during the activity lifecycle, you can do so in the onPrepareOptionsMenu() method. This method passes you the Menu object as it currently exists so you can modify it, such as by adding, removing, or disabling items. Fragments also provide an onPrepareOptionsMenu() callback.

The options menu is considered always open when menu items are presented in the app bar. When an event occurs and you want to perform a menu update, call invalidateOptionsMenu() to request that the system call onPrepareOptionsMenu().

Note: Never change items in the options menu based on the View in focus. When in touch mode—when the user isn't using a trackball or D-pad—views can't take focus, so never use focus as the basis for modifying items in the options menu. If you want to provide menu items that are context-sensitive to a View, use a contextual menu as described in the following section.

A contextual menu offers actions that affect a specific item or context frame in the UI. You can provide a context menu for any view, but they are most often used for items in a RecylerView or other view collections in which the user can perform direct actions on each item.

There are two ways to provide contextual actions:

In a floating context menu. A menu appears as a floating list of menu items, similar to a dialog, when the user performs a touch & hold on a view that declares support for a context menu. Users can perform a contextual action on one item at a time.
In the contextual action mode. This mode is a system implementation of ActionMode that displays a contextual action bar, or CAB, at the top of the screen with action items that affect the selected item(s). When this mode is active, users can perform an action on multiple items at once, if your app supports that.

Note: Context menu do not support item shortcuts and item icons.

Create a floating context menu

To provide a floating context menu, do the following:

Register the View the context menu is associated with by calling registerForContextMenu() and passing it the View.
If your activity uses a RecyclerView and you want each item to provide the same context menu, register all items for a context menu by passing the RecyclerView to registerForContextMenu().

Implement the onCreateContextMenu() method in your Activity or Fragment.

When the registered view receives a touch & hold event, the system calls your onCreateContextMenu() method. This is where you define the menu items, usually by inflating a menu resource, as in the following example:

Kotlin

    override fun onCreateContextMenu(menu: ContextMenu, v: View,
                            menuInfo: ContextMenu.ContextMenuInfo) {
        super.onCreateContextMenu(menu, v, menuInfo)
        val inflater: MenuInflater = menuInflater
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.context_menu, menu)
    }

Java

    @Override
    public void onCreateContextMenu(ContextMenu menu, View v,
                                    ContextMenuInfo menuInfo) {
        super.onCreateContextMenu(menu, v, menuInfo);
        MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.context_menu, menu);
    }

MenuInflater lets you inflate the context menu from a menu resource. The callback method parameters include the View that the user selects and a ContextMenu.ContextMenuInfo object that provides additional information about the item selected. If your activity has several views that each provide a different context menu, you might use these parameters to determine which context menu to inflate.

Implement onContextItemSelected(), as shown in the following example. When the user selects a menu item, the system calls this method so you can perform the appropriate action.

Kotlin

    override fun onContextItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
        val info = item.menuInfo as AdapterView.AdapterContextMenuInfo
        return when (item.itemId) {
            R.id.edit -> {
                editNote(info.id)
                true
            }
            R.id.delete -> {
                deleteNote(info.id)
                true
            }
            else -> super.onContextItemSelected(item)
        }
    }

Java

    @Override
    public boolean onContextItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        AdapterContextMenuInfo info = (AdapterContextMenuInfo) item.getMenuInfo();
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.edit:
                editNote(info.id);
                return true;
            case R.id.delete:
                deleteNote(info.id);
                return true;
            default:
                return super.onContextItemSelected(item);
        }
    }

The getItemId() method queries the ID for the selected menu item, which you assign to each menu item in XML using the android:id attribute, as shown in Define a menu in XML.

When you successfully handle a menu item, return true. If you don't handle the menu item, pass the menu item to the superclass implementation. If your activity includes fragments, the activity receives this callback first. By calling the superclass when unhandled, the system passes the event to the respective callback method in each fragment, one at a time, in the order each fragment is added, until true or false is returned. The default implementations for Activity and android.app.Fragment return false, so always call the superclass when unhandled.

Use the contextual action mode

The contextual action mode is a system implementation of ActionMode that focuses user interaction toward performing contextual actions. When a user enables this mode by selecting an item, a contextual action bar appears at the top of the screen to present actions the user can perform on the selected items. While this mode is enabled, the user can select multiple items, if your app supports that, and can deselect items and continue to navigate within the activity. The action mode is disabled and the contextual action bar disappears when the user deselects all items, taps the Back button, or taps the Done action on the left side of the bar.

For views that provide contextual actions, you usually invoke the contextual action mode when one or both of these two events occurs:

The user performs a touch & hold on the view.
The user selects a checkbox or similar UI component within the view.

How your app invokes the contextual action mode and defines the behavior for each action depends on your design. There are two designs:

For contextual actions on individual, arbitrary views.
For batch contextual actions on groups of items in a RecyclerView, letting the user select multiple items and perform an action on them all.

The following sections describe the setup required for each scenario.

Enable the contextual action mode for individual views

If you want to invoke the contextual action mode only when the user selects specific views, do the following:

Implement the ActionMode.Callback interface as shown in the following example. In its callback methods, you can specify the actions for the contextual action bar, respond to click events on action items, and handle other lifecycle events for the action mode.

Kotlin

    private val actionModeCallback = object : ActionMode.Callback {
        // Called when the action mode is created. startActionMode() is called.
        override fun onCreateActionMode(mode: ActionMode, menu: Menu): Boolean {
            // Inflate a menu resource providing context menu items.
            val inflater: MenuInflater = mode.menuInflater
            inflater.inflate(R.menu.context_menu, menu)
            return true
        }

        // Called each time the action mode is shown. Always called after
        // onCreateActionMode, and might be called multiple times if the mode
        // is invalidated.
        override fun onPrepareActionMode(mode: ActionMode, menu: Menu): Boolean {
            return false // Return false if nothing is done
        }

        // Called when the user selects a contextual menu item.
        override fun onActionItemClicked(mode: ActionMode, item: MenuItem): Boolean {
            return when (item.itemId) {
                R.id.menu_share -> {
                    shareCurrentItem()
                    mode.finish() // Action picked, so close the CAB.
                    true
                }
                else -> false
            }
        }

        // Called when the user exits the action mode.
        override fun onDestroyActionMode(mode: ActionMode) {
            actionMode = null
        }
    }

Java

    private ActionMode.Callback actionModeCallback = new ActionMode.Callback() {

        // Called when the action mode is created. startActionMode() is called.
        @Override
        public boolean onCreateActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu) {
            // Inflate a menu resource providing context menu items.
            MenuInflater inflater = mode.getMenuInflater();
            inflater.inflate(R.menu.context_menu, menu);
            return true;
        }

        // Called each time the action mode is shown. Always called after
        // onCreateActionMode, and might be called multiple times if the mode
        // is invalidated.
        @Override
        public boolean onPrepareActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu) {
            return false; // Return false if nothing is done.
        }

        // Called when the user selects a contextual menu item.
        @Override
        public boolean onActionItemClicked(ActionMode mode, MenuItem item) {
           switch (item.getItemId()) {
                case R.id.menu_share:
                    shareCurrentItem();
                    mode.finish(); // Action picked, so close the CAB.
                    return true;
                default:
                    return false;
            }
        }

        // Called when the user exits the action mode.
        @Override
        public void onDestroyActionMode(ActionMode mode) {
            actionMode = null;
        }
    };

These event callbacks are almost exactly the same as the callbacks for the options menu, except that each of these also passes the ActionMode object associated with the event. You can use ActionMode APIs to make various changes to the CAB, such as revising the title and subtitle with setTitle() and setSubtitle(), which is useful to indicate how many items are selected.

The preceding sample sets the actionMode variable to null when the action mode is destroyed. In the next step, see how it's initialized and how saving the member variable in your activity or fragment can be useful.

Call startActionMode() when you want to show the bar, such as when the user performs a touch & hold on the view.

Kotlin

    someView.setOnLongClickListener { view ->
        // Called when the user performs a touch & hold on someView.
        when (actionMode) {
            null -> {
                // Start the CAB using the ActionMode.Callback defined earlier.
                actionMode = activity?.startActionMode(actionModeCallback)
                view.isSelected = true
                true
            }
            else -> false
        }
    }

Java

    someView.setOnLongClickListener(new View.OnLongClickListener() {
        // Called when the user performs a touch & hold on someView.
        public boolean onLongClick(View view) {
            if (actionMode != null) {
                return false;
            }

            // Start the CAB using the ActionMode.Callback defined earlier.
            actionMode = getActivity().startActionMode(actionModeCallback);
            view.setSelected(true);
            return true;
        }
    });

When you call startActionMode(), the system returns the ActionMode created. By saving this in a member variable, you can make changes to the contextual action bar in response to other events. In the preceding sample, the ActionMode is used to ensure that the ActionMode instance isn't recreated if it's already active, by checking whether the member is null before starting the action mode.

Create a popup menu

A PopupMenu is a modal menu anchored to a View. It appears below the anchor view if there is room, or above the view otherwise. It's useful for the following:

Providing an overflow-style menu for actions that relate to specific content, such as Gmail's email headers, shown in figure 4.
Note: This isn't the same as a context menu, which is generally for actions that affect selected content. For actions that affect selected content, use the contextual action mode or floating context menu.
Providing a second part of a command sentence, such as a button marked Add that produces a popup menu with different Add options.
Providing a menu similar to a Spinner that doesn't retain a persistent selection.

If you define your menu in XML, here's how you can show the popup menu:

Instantiate a PopupMenu with its constructor, which takes the current app Context and the View to which the menu is anchored.
Use MenuInflater to inflate your menu resource into the Menu object returned by PopupMenu.getMenu().
Call PopupMenu.show().

For example, here's a button that shows a popup menu:

<ImageButton
    android:id="@+id/dropdown_menu"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:contentDescription="@string/descr_overflow_button"
    android:src="@drawable/arrow_drop_down" />

The activity can then show the popup menu like this:

Kotlin

findViewById<ImageButton>(R.id.dropdown_menu).setOnClickListener {
    val popup = PopupMenu(this, it)
    val inflater: MenuInflater = popup.menuInflater
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.actions, popup.menu)
    popup.show()
}

Java

findViewById(R.id.dropdown_menu).setOnClickListener(v -> {
    PopupMenu popup = new PopupMenu(this, v);
    popup.getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.actions, popup.getMenu());
    popup.show();
});

The menu is dismissed when the user selects an item or taps outside the menu area. You can listen for the dismiss event using PopupMenu.OnDismissListener.

Handle click events

To perform an action when the user selects a menu item, implement the PopupMenu.OnMenuItemClickListener interface and register it with your PopupMenu by calling setOnMenuItemclickListener(). When the user selects an item, the system calls the onMenuItemClick() callback in your interface.

This is shown in the following example:

Kotlin

fun showMenu(v: View) {
    PopupMenu(this, v).apply {
        // MainActivity implements OnMenuItemClickListener.
        setOnMenuItemClickListener(this@MainActivity)
        inflate(R.menu.actions)
        show()
    }
}

override fun onMenuItemClick(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
    return when (item.itemId) {
        R.id.archive -> {
            archive(item)
            true
        }
        R.id.delete -> {
            delete(item)
            true
        }
        else -> false
    }
}

Java

public void showMenu(View v) {
    PopupMenu popup = new PopupMenu(this, v);

    // This activity implements OnMenuItemClickListener.
    popup.setOnMenuItemClickListener(this);
    popup.inflate(R.menu.actions);
    popup.show();
}

@Override
public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.archive:
            archive(item);
            return true;
        case R.id.delete:
            delete(item);
            return true;
        default:
            return false;
    }
}

Create a menu group

A menu group is a collection of menu items that share certain traits. With a group, you can do the following:

Show or hide all items using setGroupVisible().
Enable or disable all items using setGroupEnabled().
Specify whether all items are checkable using setGroupCheckable().

You can create a group by nesting <item> elements inside a <group> element in your menu resource or by specifying a group ID with the add() method.

Here's an example of a menu resource that includes a group:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/menu_save"
          android:icon="@drawable/menu_save"
          android:title="@string/menu_save" />
    <!-- menu group -->
    <group android:id="@+id/group_delete">
        <item android:id="@+id/menu_archive"
              android:title="@string/menu_archive" />
        <item android:id="@+id/menu_delete"
              android:title="@string/menu_delete" />
    </group>
</menu>

The items that are in the group appear at the same level as the first item—all three items in the menu are siblings. However, you can modify the traits of the two items in the group by referencing the group ID and using the preceding methods. The system also never separates grouped items. For example, if you declare android:showAsAction="ifRoom" for each item, they both appear in the action bar or both appear in the action overflow.

Use checkable menu items

Figure 5. A submenu with checkable items.

A menu can be useful as an interface for turning options on and off, using a checkbox for standalone options, or radio buttons for groups of mutually exclusive options. Figure 5 shows a submenu with items that are checkable with radio buttons.

You can define the checkable behavior for individual menu items using the android:checkable attribute in the <item> element, or for an entire group with the android:checkableBehavior attribute in the <group> element. For example, all items in this menu group are checkable with a radio button:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <group android:checkableBehavior="single">
        <item android:id="@+id/red"
              android:title="@string/red" />
        <item android:id="@+id/blue"
              android:title="@string/blue" />
    </group>
</menu>

The android:checkableBehavior attribute accepts one of the following:

single: Only one item from the group can be checked, resulting in radio buttons.
all: All items can be checked, resulting in checkboxes.
none: No items are checkable.

You can apply a default checked state to an item using the android:checked attribute in the <item> element and change it in code with the setChecked() method.

When a checkable item is selected, the system calls your respective item-selected callback method, such as onOptionsItemSelected(). This is where you set the state of the checkbox, because a checkbox or radio button doesn't change its state automatically. You can query the current state of the item—as it was before the user selected it—with isChecked() and then set the checked state with setChecked(). This is shown in the following example:

Kotlin

override fun onOptionsItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
    return when (item.itemId) {
        R.id.vibrate, R.id.dont_vibrate -> {
            item.isChecked = !item.isChecked
            true
        }
        else -> super.onOptionsItemSelected(item)
    }
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.vibrate:
        case R.id.dont_vibrate:
            if (item.isChecked()) item.setChecked(false);
            else item.setChecked(true);
            return true;
        default:
            return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

If you don't set the checked state this way, then the visible state of the checkbox or radio button doesn't change when the user selects it. When you do set the state, the activity preserves the checked state of the item so that when the user opens the menu later, the checked state that you set is visible.

Add menu items based on an intent

Sometimes you want a menu item to launch an activity using an Intent, whether it's an activity in your app or another app. When you know the intent you want to use and have a specific menu item that initiates the intent, you can execute the intent with startActivity() during the appropriate on-item-selected callback method, such as the onOptionsItemSelected() callback.

However, if you aren't certain that the user's device contains an app that handles the intent, then adding a menu item that invokes it can result in a non-functioning menu item, because the intent might not resolve to an activity. To solve this, Android lets you dynamically add menu items to your menu when Android finds activities on the device that handle your intent.

To add menu items based on available activities that accept an intent, do the following:

Define an intent with the category CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE or CATEGORY_SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE, or both, plus any other requirements.
Call Menu.addIntentOptions(). Android then searches for any apps that can perform the intent and adds them to your menu.

If there are no apps installed that satisfy the intent, then no menu items are added.

Note: CATEGORY_SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE is used to handle the selected element on the screen. Only use it when creating a menu in onCreateContextMenu().

This is shown in the following example:

Kotlin

override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean {
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu)

    // Create an Intent that describes the requirements to fulfill, to be
    // included in the menu. The offering app must include a category value
    // of Intent.CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE.
    val intent = Intent(null, dataUri).apply {
        addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE)
    }

    // Search and populate the menu with acceptable offering apps.
    menu.addIntentOptions(
            R.id.intent_group,  // Menu group to which new items are added.
            0,                  // Unique item ID (none).
            0,                  // Order for the items (none).
            this.componentName, // The current activity name.
            null,               // Specific items to place first (none).
            intent,             // Intent created above that describes the requirements.
            0,                  // Additional flags to control items (none).
            null)               // Array of MenuItems that correlate to specific items (none).

    return true
}

Java

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu){
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);

    // Create an Intent that describes the requirements to fulfill, to be
    // included in the menu. The offering app must include a category value
    // of Intent.CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE.
    Intent intent = new Intent(null, dataUri);
    intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE);

    // Search and populate the menu with acceptable offering apps.
    menu.addIntentOptions(
         R.id.intent_group,         // Menu group to which new items are added.
         0,                         // Unique item ID (none).
         0,                         // Order for the items (none).
         this.getComponentName(),   // The current activity name.
         null,                      // Specific items to place first (none).
         intent,                    // Intent created above that describes the requirements.
         0,                         // Additional flags to control items (none).
         null);                     // Array of MenuItems that correlate to specific items (none).

    return true;
}

For each activity found that provides an intent filter matching the intent defined, a menu item is added, using the value in the intent filter's android:label as the menu item title and the app icon as the menu item icon. The addIntentOptions() method returns the number of menu items added.

Note: When you call addIntentOptions(), it overrides all menu items by the menu group specified in the first argument.

Let your activity be added to other menus

You can offer the services of your activity to other apps so your app can be included in the menu of others—reversing the roles described earlier.

To be included in other app menus, define an intent filter as usual, but include the CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE or CATEGORY_SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE values, or both, for the intent filter category. This is shown in the following example:

<intent-filter label="@string/resize_image">
    ...
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.ALTERNATIVE" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.SELECTED_ALTERNATIVE" />
    ...
</intent-filter>

Read more about writing intent filters in Intents and intent filters.