showAsAction="ifRoom" doesn't show the item even when there is plenty of room

Question

I am trying to get the ActionBar working properly on my app (and I'm using ActionBarSherlock to get a unified UI between Android 2.x and 4.x).

I feel like android:showAsAction="ifRoom" is just a big, fat lie. Whenever I set an action to ifRoom it ALWAYS shows up in the overflow menu even if there is PLENTY of room. Here are two screenshots from the same emulator. The first shows the ActionBar with all options set to always and the second shows the ActionBar with the last two options set to ifRoom. As you can see, there was PLENTY of room when they were all shown in the always screenshot, so why aren't they all showing in the second because they DO have room?

Here is my menu.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

    <item
        android:id="@+id/add"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_btn_add"
        android:showAsAction="always"
        android:title="Add"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/calculateNPV"
        android:icon="@drawable/menu_icon_npv"
        android:showAsAction="always"
        android:title="NPV"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/calculateIRR"
        android:icon="@drawable/menu_icon_irr"
        android:showAsAction="always"
        android:title="IRR/YR"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/send"
        android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_share"
        android:showAsAction="always"
        android:title="@string/share_pdf"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/graph"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_gallery"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
        android:title="@string/view_cashflow_diagram"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/deleteReorder"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_clear_playlist"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
        android:title="@string/delete_reorder_cashflows"/>

</menu>

Solution 1

I hope I am not too late in coming to the party.

It is really not a big fat lie but a small oversight.

The showAsAction attribute must be defined using a different namespace "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

You should therefore in your top menu tag define a namespace as follows xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

and then use that to define your showAsAction attribute like so app:showAsAction="ifRoom"

That should fix it

Solution 2

It's because there is specified maximum number of items that should go to actionbar and it seems to be 4. Of course you can force them to appear by setting showAsAction: always but regarding to google API guides:

If you believe that more than four of your menu items can be justified as action items, then you should carefully consider their relative level of importance and try to set no more than four as action items (and do so using the "ifRoom" value to allow the system to put some back in the overflow menu when space is limited on smaller screens). Even if space is available on a wide screen, you should not create a long stream of action items that clutter the UI and appear like a desktop toolbar, so keep the number of action items to a minimum.

Additionally, the following actions should never appear as action items: Settings, Help, Feedback, or similar. Always keep them in the overflow menu.

Solution 3

To complement the answer from Michal Z.: The Android Design Guide Page Patterns->Actionbar says the following in the chapter "Action Buttons":

http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/actionbar.html

How many actions will fit in the main action bar? Action bar capacity is controlled by the following rules:

• Action buttons in the main action bar may not occupy more than 50% of the bar's width.
• Action buttons on bottom action bars can use the entire width.
• The screen width in density-independent pixels (dp) determine the number of items that will fit in the main action bar:
  • smaller than 360 dp = 2 icons
  • 360-499 dp = 3 icons
  • 500-599 dp = 4 icons
  • 600 dp and larger = 5 icons

Solution 4

use app:showAsAction="always" instead of android:showAsAction="always"

Solution 5

Use

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >

View more solutions

Comments

[Jake Wharton]

It's not always 4. See this chart: developer.android.com/design/media/action_bar_pattern_table.‌​png

[Kenny Wyland]

But as you can see, there IS room for those actions, so -ifRoom- is a big, fat lie. :) It's also frustrating that there is no visible indicator that there ARE more options available via the Menu button. It's much worse to show them SOME options but not all without an indicator, because showing SOME tells the user that this is the location to look. Why would there be another location?

[Michał Z.]

@Jake Wharton: Yeah right! I knew that I have seen something like this before but I couldn't remember where. Now I think that it was in one of google design in action videos about ActionBar... Thanks!

[Michał Z.]

@Kenny Wyland: watch this youtube.com/watch?v=jes1iXRFRw0 it should explain some things. There can be other things on ActionBar than "buttons". I agree about the thing with physical menu button and that there is no indicator that there are more items.

[arne.jans]

Jake Wharton: for context and rules quoted in my answer, I give the link to the relevant page from the design guide: developer.android.com/design/patterns/actionbar.html

[KurtCobain]

I had the exact same issue - and in fact in my case - I had to do exactly opposite: use android:showAsAction namespace to fix this issue.

[nickromano]

If you are using ActionBarActivity you need to use the namespace. Using Activity you can use android:showAsAction

[The Original Android]

I tried it, did not work for me. Android documentation does not even support it.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Please explain your answer, as code only answers are usually unclear and harder to understand.

[Derek 朕會功夫]

@KurtCobain Using the android namespace fixes my problem!

[Soren Stoutner]

If you are using the appcompat library you need to use app. Otherwise you should use android.

[Soren Stoutner]

The chart at developer.android.com/design/media/action_bar_pattern_table.‌​png shows that the maximum number of showAsAction:ifRoom icons is 4 with the options overflow icon at the right taking up the fifth position. developer.android.com/design/patterns/actionbar.html Perhaps they will update Android to allow more icons with the introduction of the Google Play store to Chrome OS but I'm not holding my breath.

[Quimbo]

Insted of use android:actionProviderClass="android.widget.ShareActionProvi‌​der"/> Use app:actionProviderClass="android.support.v7.widget.ShareActi‌​onProvider"/>