Action Bar vs Menu primer ?

[canalrun]

Menu items will now appear in the action bar on Android 3.0+ devices

Hello,
I see one of the new features for Android 3 and 4 is gravitating away from the Menu toward the Action Bar.

I am a real fan of the Menu and wonder what the practical meaning of this change is. I have Googled for some kind of discussion – nothing.

I notice on my Acer 500, Android v 4.03, that normally there are only three icons along the bottom, Back, Home, and Recent Apps (?). But, when I open one of my B4A apps that uses a menu, a fourth vertical bar is added along with the other three icons. This bar opens the menu.

How will this change with version 2.2 of B4A? What exactly is an Action Bar.

Having the menu hidden until required is very important – because it allows more usable screen area. Is the Action Bar always visible? If not, how does one "open" the Action Bar?

Will Android always support the Menu (maybe as it does now by adding a fourth icon along the bottom) in future versions?

When I do Activity.AddMenuItem, will I have the option of choosing a Menu rather than an Action Bar? Maybe an AddMenuItem3 could automatically select to use a menu or action bar depending on the underlying Android version.

Currently for my apps the same code supports older and newer Android versions and screen sizes from little phones to monster tablets. I find that I have more than three times as many downloads for devices using Android versions lower than 3 than for devices using Android version 3 and higher.

Losing valuable screen real estate would not be very welcome. Having to change functionality based on the Android version would not be much fun either.

Can anyone give a primer on the Action Bar vs Menu?

Thanks much,
Barry.

 

[MLDev]

The menu button is now called the "Action overflow" button and it's on the action bar. It works about the same as before.

For more information on the action bar see: Action Bar | Android Developers

 

[canalrun]

Thanks.

The first sentence on the page you referenced worries me:

The action bar is a dedicated piece of real estate at the top of each screen that is generally persistent throughout the app.

In the apps I have written screen real estate is a premium commodity. I hate seeing anything dedicated and persistent that steals space from the app.

Do you know how tall the Action Bar is?

Is it possible to stick with a Menu - the menu only pops over space otherwise used for app display when required.

Barry.

 

[Scantech]

I wanted to take advantage with the modern theme so I decided to eliminate the Menu button on API 11 and above and go with an Action Bar. The new modern theme is not that bad at all and also I have noticed animation is much smoother.