android.support.v7 with `ActionBarActivity` no menu shows

android, android-actionbar, android-menu, android-support-library

Solution

Try pressing the MENU button on your device or emulator, and see if they appear in the overflow.

If they do, then the problem is that your `<menu>` XML needs to change. Menu XML that works with ActionBarSherlock and the native API Level 11+ action bar will not work with the AppCompat action bar backport.

Your menu XML would need to look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
>
    <item android:id="@+id/item_menu_ok" android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_ok"
        android:title="@string/ok" yourapp:showAsAction="always"></item>
    <item android:id="@+id/item_menu_cancel" android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_cancel"
        android:title="@string/cancel" yourapp:showAsAction="always"></item>
</menu>

And you would need to use the same `yourapp` prefix for anything else related to the action bar (e.g., `yourapp:actionLayout`).

You can see this covered in the action bar documentation.

Problem

In the new update Google has released a new API support library, that supports the ActionBar in API level 7+. I used ActionBarSherlock until this update and I wrote the code to load the menu: ``` @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater(); inflater.inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu); return true; } ``` and the menu file: ``` <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <item android:id="@+id/item_menu_ok" android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_ok" android:title="@string/ok" android:showAsAction="always"></item> <item android:id="@+id/item_menu_cancel" android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_cancel" android:title="@string/cancel" android:showAsAction="always"></item> </menu> ``` To set up the menu buttons on the action bar. This code worked perfectly with ActionBarSherlock. But when I changed the action bar to the new support library, the buttons are not shown in the action bar. Even if they are set as `android:showAsAction="always"`. And when I debug the code, the function `menu.getSize()` return 2, and that is correct, but no buttons are shown.. Why are the buttons not shown in the new support library?

Original source