Android Popup Menu with Examples

In android, Popup Menu displays a list of items in a modal popup window that is anchored to the view. The popup menu will appear below the view if there is a room or above the view in case if there is no space and it will be closed automatically when we touch outside of the popup.

The android Popup Menu provides an overflow style menu for actions that are related to specific content.

Following is the pictorial representation of using Popup Menu in our android applications.

In android, the Popup Menu provides an overflow of actions that are related to specific content and the actions in popup menu won’t affect the corresponding content.  The popup menu won’t support any item shortcuts and item icons.

In android, Popup menu is available with API level 11 (Android 3.0) and higher versions. If you are using Android 3.0 +, the Popup Menu won’t support any item shortcuts and item icons in the menu.

Create Android Popup Menu in XML File

In android, to define popup menu, we need to create a new folder menu inside of our project resource directory (res/menu/) and add a new XML (menu_example) file to build the menu.

Following is the example of defining a menu in XML file (menu_example.xml).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:id="@+id/mail"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_mail"
        android:title="@string/mail" />
    <item android:id="@+id/upload"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_upload"
        android:title="@string/upload"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
    <item android:id="@+id/share"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_share"
        android:title="@string/share" />
</menu>

Once we are done with the creation of menu, we need to create a view element which anchored the menu.

<Button
    android:id="@+id/btnShow"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Show Popup Menu"
    android:onClick="showPopup" />

Now in our activity we need to implement showPopup method to show the popup menu. 

Load Android Popup Menu from an Activity

To show the popup menu for the view, we need to instantiate Popup constructor and use MenuInflater to load the defined menu resource using MenuInflater.inflate() like as shown below.

public void showPopup(View v) {
    PopupMenu popup = new PopupMenu(this, v);
    MenuInflater inflater = popup.getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu_example, popup.getMenu());
    popup.show();
}

Handle Android Popup Menu Click Events

To perform an action when the user selects a menu item, we need to implement the PopupMenu.OnMenuItemClickListener interface and register it with our PopupMenu by calling setOnMenuItemclickListener(). When the user selects an item, the system calls the onMenuItemClick() callback in your interface.

Following is the example of handling a popup menu item click event using onMenuItemClick().

public void showMenu(View v) {
    PopupMenu popup = new PopupMenu(this, v);    popup.setOnMenuItemClickListener(this);
    popup.inflate(R.menu.actions);
    popup.show();
}
@Overridepublic boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.archive:
            archive(item);
            return true;
        case R.id.delete:
            delete(item);
            return true;
        default:
            return false;
    }
}

Note: If you are using Android 3.0 +, the Popup Menu won’t support any item shortcuts and item icons in the menu.

Android Popup Menu Example

Following is the example of implementing a Popup Menu in android application.

Create a new android application using android studio and give names as PopupMenuExample. In case if you are not aware of creating an app in android studio check this article Android Hello World App.

Now open an activity_main.xml file from \res\layout path and write the code like as shown below

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/btnShow"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Show Popup Menu"
        android:layout_marginTop="200dp" android:layout_marginLeft="100dp"/>
</LinearLayout>

If you observe above code we created a one Button control in XML Layout file to show the popup menu when we click on Button. 

In android, to define popup menu, we need to create a new folder menu inside of our project resource directory (res/menu/) and add a new XML (popup_menu.xml) file to build the menu.

Now open newly created xml (popup_menu.xml) file and write the code like as shown below.

popup_menu.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
    <item android:id="@+id/search_item"
        android:title="Search" />
    <item android:id="@+id/upload_item"
        android:title="Upload" />
    <item android:id="@+id/copy_item"
        android:title="Copy" />
    <item android:id="@+id/print_item"
        android:title="Print" />
    <item android:id="@+id/share_item"
        android:title="Share" />
    <item android:id="@+id/bookmark_item"
        android:title="BookMark" />
</menu>

Once we are done with creation of menu, we need to load this menu XML resource from our activity by instantiating a Popup constructor, for that open main activity file MainActivity.java from \java\com.tutlane.popupmenuexample path and write the code like as shown below.

MainActivity.java

package com.tutlane.popupmenuexample;import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;import android.os.Bundle;import android.view.MenuItem;import android.view.View;import android.widget.Button;import android.widget.PopupMenu;import android.widget.Toast;
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements PopupMenu.OnMenuItemClickListener {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnShow);
        btn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                PopupMenu popup = new PopupMenu(MainActivity.this, v);
                popup.setOnMenuItemClickListener(MainActivity.this);
                popup.inflate(R.menu.popup_menu);
                popup.show();
            }
        });
    }
    @Override
    public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
        Toast.makeText(this, "Selected Item: " +item.getTitle(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.search_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            case R.id.upload_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            case R.id.copy_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            case R.id.print_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            case R.id.share_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            case R.id.bookmark_item:
                // do your code
                return true;
            default:
                return false;
        }
    }
}

If you observe above code we are trying to show popup menu on Button click, loaded defined menu resource using Popup.inflate() and implement popup menu items click event.

Generally, during the launch of our activity, onCreate() callback method will be called by android framework to get the required layout for an activity.

Output of Android Popup Menu Example

When we run above example using android virtual device (AVD) we will get a result like as shown below.

This is how we can create Popup Menu in android applications to handle global actions.