Possible to have action overflow icon in top action bar of split actionbar?

Question

Let me explain my current scenario.

I have a split action bar. From what I understand all action items will go to the bottom of the split action bar. I want to have some action items in the top action bar so I made a custom action bar by making an xml file for it.

In my onCreate, I have this to set up the top action bar...(custom_actionbar is an xml file I made.)

getActionBar().setDisplayOptions(
ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_HOME | ActionBar.DISPLAY_HOME_AS_UP
                | ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM);
View view = View.inflate(getApplicationContext(),
        R.layout.custom_actionbar, null);
getActionBar().setCustomView(view);

So this works to set up the top of the action bar.

Now I am getting closer to my problem. I can currently get an action overflow icon in the bottom of the split action bar, but I want the icon to be at the top of the split action bar.

For a simple action bar it is possible to set the action overflow icon by doing android:showAsAction = "never" in the respective menu xml file.

HOWEVER, if I am doing a custom action bar for the top, I can not do this. This will only apply to the bottom action bar as all of the elements in the respective menu xml file will go to the bottom of a split action bar.

Does anyone know how I can get the action overflow icon to appear at the top of the split action bar or should I remodel everything in a different way? Like just have a normal action bar and then have some strip to hold image buttons at the bottom to mimic a split action bar? Or is there a way to get the elements in the menu xml file to go to the top of the split action bar?

Any Help is appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

By what i understand you want to have the overflow menu in the top action bar which is a custom xml file. You can actually mimic that overflow menu icon and the options list in the custom xml file if required. It is basically a hack to use popup windows with a list adapter to mimic the overflow menu behavior. Check the link: http://rajeshandroiddeveloper.blogspot.com/2013/07/android-popupwindow-example-in-listview.html

Hopefully this solves you problem.

Answer 2

So there is no real "good" way of having the action overflow button in the top of a split action bar menu. There are several ways that one could go about doing this.

1. Create a custom view for the top, have an image button that represents the action overflow menu icon and launch a pop up menu onClick to simulate the action overflow menu.
2. Create a regular (single) action bar and then create a custom view that will be at the bottom of the activity that will resemble the bottom of a split action bar. The action bar can get the action overflow menu if at-least one menu item is set to android:showAsAction = "never"

I personally went with option 2 because I could not find a suitable icon that represents the action overflow icon.