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mola2alex
Inspiring
October 7, 2011
Answered

Honeycomb menu button

  • October 7, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 3796 views

Anyone else not seeing the menu button appear for Android 3.X when apps compiled in AIR3?

Open Flash CS5.5. Click File - New - Templates - Air for Android - "Options Menu".

If you compile your app under AIR2.6, all is well, Android 3.X will show 4 soft buttons (BACK, HOME, RECENT APPS, MENU). The menu button will work and do what you need it to do in AIR.

If you compile in 2.7 and now 3.0, the soft menu button does not show up when using the same code.

Did something change, is there a command that needs to be expicitly defined to make the menu appear?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Joe ... Ward

I had the same thought, but I don't know the plans. (I'm not sure I could tell you if I did know due to NDAs, etc, anyway).

I did learn of a workaround for the menu button issue. In AIR 3 you are now allowed to set the Android target SDK version. If you set it to 9 or 10, then Android displays the menu button.

Set in the AIR application descriptor by adding:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" android:targetSdkVersion="10"/>

as a child of the <manifest> element in the android section. You can't specify a version less than 8.

1 reply

J
Joe ... Ward
Participating Frequently
October 7, 2011

Honeycomb only displays a menu button for older apps (using earlier version of the Android SDK). AIR 2.7 and AIR 3 use Android SDK 11, so the menu button at the bottom is no longer provided by the OS. Native Android apps have a new Android UI component called the Actionbar. This has a dropdown menu that replaces the old menu button. Flex has a similar concept. If you are using ActionScript, you can create your own Actionbar, or whatever other affordance for opening a menu you think appropriate.

M
mola2alexAuthor
Inspiring
October 7, 2011

OK, now that you mention it, it makes sense although I wish they had left it in as an option.  I will re-work the UI and move on.  Do you have any insight into the new version of android set to come out since it merges tablet and phone OS?  Are they doing away with menu button altogether?  I would hate to revamp my app and in a month be faced with the same issue on handsets.

J
Joe ... WardCorrect answer
Participating Frequently
October 10, 2011

I had the same thought, but I don't know the plans. (I'm not sure I could tell you if I did know due to NDAs, etc, anyway).

I did learn of a workaround for the menu button issue. In AIR 3 you are now allowed to set the Android target SDK version. If you set it to 9 or 10, then Android displays the menu button.

Set in the AIR application descriptor by adding:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" android:targetSdkVersion="10"/>

as a child of the <manifest> element in the android section. You can't specify a version less than 8.

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