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Android APIs
public abstract class

ActionProvider

extends Object
java.lang.Object
   ↳ android.support.v4.view.ActionProvider
Known Direct Subclasses

Class Overview

This class is a mediator for accomplishing a given task, for example sharing a file. It is responsible for creating a view that performs an action that accomplishes the task. This class also implements other functions such a performing a default action.

Note: This class is included in the support library for compatibility with API level 4 and higher. If you're developing your app for API level 14 and higher only , you should instead use the framework ActionProvider class.

An ActionProvider can be optionally specified for a MenuItem and in such a case it will be responsible for creating the action view that appears in the ActionBar as a substitute for the menu item when the item is displayed as an action item. Also the provider is responsible for performing a default action if a menu item placed on the overflow menu of the ActionBar is selected and none of the menu item callbacks has handled the selection. For this case the provider can also optionally provide a sub-menu for accomplishing the task at hand.

There are two ways for using an action provider for creating and handling of action views:

  • Setting the action provider on a MenuItem directly by calling setActionProvider(android.view.MenuItem, ActionProvider) .
  • Declaring the action provider in the menu XML resource. For example: 
              
           <item android:id="@+id/my_menu_item"
     android:title="@string/my_menu_item_title"
     android:icon="@drawable/my_menu_item_icon"
     android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
     android:actionProviderClass="foo.bar.SomeActionProvider" />

See Also

Summary

Nested Classes
interface ActionProvider.VisibilityListener Listens to changes in visibility as reported by refreshVisibility() . 
Public Constructors
ActionProvider ( Context context)
Creates a new instance.
Public Methods
Context getContext ()
Gets the context associated with this action provider.
boolean hasSubMenu ()
Determines if this ActionProvider has a submenu associated with it.
boolean isVisible ()
If overridesItemVisibility() returns true, the return value of this method will help determine the visibility of the MenuItem this ActionProvider is bound to.
abstract View onCreateActionView ()
Factory method for creating new action views.
View onCreateActionView ( MenuItem forItem)
Factory method called by the Android framework to create new action views.
boolean onPerformDefaultAction ()
Performs an optional default action.
void onPrepareSubMenu ( SubMenu subMenu)
Called to prepare an associated submenu for the menu item backed by this ActionProvider.
boolean overridesItemVisibility ()
The result of this method determines whether or not isVisible() will be used by the MenuItem this ActionProvider is bound to help determine its visibility.
void refreshVisibility ()
If this ActionProvider is associated with an item in a menu, refresh the visibility of the item based on overridesItemVisibility() and isVisible() .
void setVisibilityListener ( ActionProvider.VisibilityListener listener)
Set a listener to be notified when this ActionProvider's overridden visibility changes.
[Expand]
Inherited Methods
From class java.lang.Object

Public Constructors

public ActionProvider ( Context context)

Creates a new instance.

Parameters
context Context for accessing resources.

Public Methods

public Context getContext ()

Gets the context associated with this action provider.

public boolean hasSubMenu ()

Determines if this ActionProvider has a submenu associated with it.

Associated submenus will be shown when an action view is not. This provider instance will receive a call to onPrepareSubMenu(SubMenu) after the call to onPerformDefaultAction() and before a submenu is displayed to the user.

Returns
  • true if the item backed by this provider should have an associated submenu

public boolean isVisible ()

If overridesItemVisibility() returns true, the return value of this method will help determine the visibility of the MenuItem this ActionProvider is bound to.

If the MenuItem's visibility is explicitly set to false by the application, the MenuItem will not be shown, even if this method returns true.

Returns
  • true if the MenuItem this ActionProvider is bound to is visible, false if it is invisible. The default implementation returns true.

public abstract View onCreateActionView ()

Factory method for creating new action views.

Returns
  • A new action view.

public View onCreateActionView ( MenuItem forItem)

Factory method called by the Android framework to create new action views. This method returns a new action view for the given MenuItem.

If your ActionProvider implementation overrides the deprecated no-argument overload onCreateActionView() , overriding this method for devices running API 16 or later is recommended but optional. The default implementation calls onCreateActionView() for compatibility with applications written for older platform versions.

Parameters
forItem MenuItem to create the action view for
Returns
  • the new action view

public boolean onPerformDefaultAction ()

Performs an optional default action.

For the case of an action provider placed in a menu item not shown as an action this method is invoked if previous callbacks for processing menu selection has handled the event.

A menu item selection is processed in the following order:

The default implementation does not perform any action and returns false.

public void onPrepareSubMenu ( SubMenu subMenu)

Called to prepare an associated submenu for the menu item backed by this ActionProvider.

if hasSubMenu() returns true, this method will be called when the menu item is selected to prepare the submenu for presentation to the user. Apps may use this to create or alter submenu content right before display.

Parameters
subMenu Submenu that will be displayed

public boolean overridesItemVisibility ()

The result of this method determines whether or not isVisible() will be used by the MenuItem this ActionProvider is bound to help determine its visibility.

Returns
  • true if this ActionProvider overrides the visibility of the MenuItem it is bound to, false otherwise. The default implementation returns false.
See Also

public void refreshVisibility ()

If this ActionProvider is associated with an item in a menu, refresh the visibility of the item based on overridesItemVisibility() and isVisible() . If overridesItemVisibility() returns false, this call will have no effect.

public void setVisibilityListener ( ActionProvider.VisibilityListener listener)

Set a listener to be notified when this ActionProvider's overridden visibility changes. This should only be used by MenuItem implementations.

Parameters
listener listener to set