ShareActionProvider

public class ShareActionProvider
extends ActionProvider

Provides a share action, which is suitable for an activity's app bar. Creates views that enable data sharing. If the provider appears in the overflow menu, it creates a submenu with the appropriate sharing actions.

Adding a share action

To add a "share" action to your activity, put a ShareActionProvider in the app bar's menu resource. For example:

 <item android:id="@+id/action_share"
      android:title="@string/share"
      app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
      app:actionProviderClass="android.support.v7.widget.ShareActionProvider"/>
 

You do not need to specify an icon, since the ShareActionProvider widget takes care of its own appearance and behavior. However, you do need to specify a title with android:title, in case the action ends up in the overflow menu.

Next, set up the intent that contains the content your activity is able to share. You should create this intent in your handler for onCreateOptionsMenu(), and update it every time the shareable content changes. To set up the intent:

1. Get a reference to the ShareActionProvider by calling getActionProvider() and passing the share action's MenuItem. For example:

    MenuItem shareItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_share);
    ShareActionProvider myShareActionProvider =
        (ShareActionProvider) MenuItemCompat.getActionProvider(shareItem);

2. Create an intent with the ACTION_SEND action, and attach the content shared by the activity. For example, the following intent shares an image:

    Intent myShareIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
    myShareIntent.setType("image/*");
    myShareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, myImageUri);

3. Call setShareIntent() to attach this intent to the action provider:

    myShareActionProvider.setShareIntent(myShareIntent);
    

4. When the content changes, modify the intent or create a new one, and call setShareIntent() again. For example:

    // Image has changed! Update the intent:
    myShareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, myNewImageUri);
    myShareActionProvider.setShareIntent(myShareIntent);

Share target rankings

The share action provider retains a ranking for each share target, based on how often the user chooses each one. The more often a user chooses a target, the higher its rank; the most-commonly used target appears in the app bar as the default target.

By default, the target ranking information is stored in a private file with the name specified by DEFAULT_SHARE_HISTORY_FILE_NAME. Ordinarily, the share action provider stores all the history in this single file. However, using a single set of rankings may not make sense if the share action provider is used for different kinds of content. For example, if the activity sometimes shares images and sometimes shares contacts, you would want to maintain two different sets of rankings.

To set the history file, call setShareHistoryFileName() and pass the name of an XML file. The file you specify is used until the next time you call setShareHistoryFileName().

Summary