Disable Action Bar button in Android

Question

Is it possible to disable a button in Action Bar in Android? I was looking around and I could not find any code snippet for that, I was thinking that there should be some easy way.

Solution 1

1. Once you perform the user action when you want to disable the action bar, set some flag, say disableButtonFlag.

2. Call invalidateOptionsMenu(). This will trigger onCreateOptionsMenu to be invoked to regenerate your menu.

3. Finally modify your onCreateOptionsMenu to disable the button you want depending on the state of disableButtonFlag.

   if (disableButtonFlag) {
       menu.findItem(R.id.your_item).setEnabled(false);
   } else {
       menu.findItem(R.id.your_item).setEnabled(true);
   }
   

   Or more simply:

   menu.findItem(R.id.your_item).setEnabled(!disableButtonFlag);
   

Solution 2

A simple method to disable a button in the action bar is to save a reference to the menu in onCreateOptionsMenu():

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);    
    mMenu = menu;    // Save reference
    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

and then call setEnabled() on the menu item to enable or disable:

mMenu.findItem(R.id.my_action_item).setEnabled(false);

No need to re-create the menu by calling invalidateOptionsMenu().

Solution 3

For Android developers who are using a custom ActionBar i.e (Save & Cancel action buttons), I have tried the following code to disable Cancel action button as follows:

Java code:

LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) this
                .getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
        View actionBarButtons = inflater.inflate(
                R.layout.edit_event_custom_actionbar, new LinearLayout(this),
                false);

        View cancelActionView = actionBarButtons
                .findViewById(R.id.action_cancel);
        cancelActionView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub

            }
        });
        cancelActionView.setEnabled(false);

        View doneActionView = actionBarButtons.findViewById(R.id.action_done);
        doneActionView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @SuppressLint("NewApi")
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub

            }
        });
        getActionBar().setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(false);
        getActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
        getActionBar().setDisplayShowCustomEnabled(true);
        this.getActionBar().setCustomView(actionBarButtons);

edit_event_custom_actionbar.xml

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:divider="?attr/dividerVertical"
    android:dividerPadding="12dp"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:showDividers="middle" >

    <!-- id must match corresponding menu item id -->
<TextView  
    android:id="@+id/action_cancel"
    style="@style/EditEventCustomActionButton"
    android:text="@string/cancel_label" 
    android:drawableLeft="@drawable/ic_action_cancel" android:padding="5dp" />

    <!-- id must match corresponding menu item id -->
<TextView  
    android:id="@+id/action_done"
    style="@style/EditEventCustomActionButton"
    android:text="@string/abc_action_mode_done" 
    android:drawableLeft="@drawable/abc_ic_cab_done_holo_dark" android:paddingRight="5dp" />

</LinearLayout>

And add this code to your /values/styles.xml:

<style name="EditEventCustomActionButton" parent="android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionButton">
    <item name="android:layout_height">match_parent</item>
    <item name="android:layout_width">0dp</item>
    <item name="android:layout_weight">1</item>
    <item name="android:focusable">true</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
</style>

Comments

[Mediha]

But I need ActionBar, I have requirements for the application. I need to continue using ActionBar and when the user adds one file I need to disable adding more files (button for adding files is in ActionBar).

[Mediha]

But it should be enabled at the beginning, I need to disable later, after user action. Please read the comment above. Thanks.

[Vrashabh Irde]

Oh disable button, edited. I assumed remove the action bar, generally what disable the action bar seems to imply generically.

[Brtle]

Just create a Menu attribute in your activity and initialize it in the onCreateOptionsMenu.

[Mediha]

I found the way how to call invalidateOptionsMenu, but basically it was this. Thank you.

[Mediha]

This is exactly what I did. Thank you.

[mtmurdock]

How could I do this from my Fragment/Activity super class? I have a side navigation menu which swaps out the content fragment in my activity. When the side menu is opened, I want to disable all of the actionbar buttons. Using the above method I would have to do this in every content fragment class. Is there a way to do it from a parent fragment class more generically?

[RedDeath]

You would now call requireActivity().invalidateOptionsMenu() if you are in a fragment