Apps No standard menu button in 3.0+, how do I get access to it?

[RED_]

Howdy all, bit of a problem.

I made my app compatible with both pre and post 3.0. Before 3.0 most phones had menu buttons which led to settings or other menu options. Since 3.0+ the dev guide has depreciated the menu button so phones don't need it. ICS and JB don't use them.

So how do I let users access it? In Gingerbread a user can press the menu button and then select the "Settings" link. Everyone knows what I mean but I feel I need to explain it: here's the dev guide anyway.

So if one of my users is on a 3.0+ device how can I let them get access to the settings page? I don't want to use the Action Bar like the dev guide suggests. That's a huge UI change just for one settings page.

Is there anything I can do? I mean it's just one page and changing my UI to add a settings imageview would change the overall layout of main.xml which at the moment is just how i want it.

Would really appreciate any help. From my point of view it looks like a dead end which is worrying.

 

[fiveHellions]

As long as you set the minSdkVersion to 10 or lower and the targetSdkVersion to 13 or lower the system should show an action overflow next to the on screen keys for devices that don't have physical buttons.

as shown on the right side here:

See the "Action overflow button for legacy apps" section here:
Android Developers Blog: Say Goodbye to the Menu Button

The bad news if you want to use some of the features from the later sdks you will have to add either an action bar or a button in your layout to get to the settings.

 

[RED_]

As long as you set the minSdkVersion to 10 or lower and the targetSdkVersion to 13 or lower the system should show an action overflow next to the on screen keys for devices that don't have physical buttons.

as shown on the right side here:

See the "Action overflow button for legacy apps" section here:
Android Developers Blog: Say Goodbye to the Menu Button

The bad news if you want to use some of the features from the later sdks you will have to add either an action bar or a button in your layout to get to the settings.

Thanks! I'll look into that. Considering a lot of people are still on Gingerbread, for now I can just live without the new features, in a few months I'll have a UI update to refresh the app or something. When more people actually use ICS/JB then I can use some of the SDKs features for that.

To be honest I think this change is a bit of a kick in the teeth to devs, sure Google want fluidity in their apps but an action bar is quite a big UI change. It makes everything look a bit bland and iphone like. I guess the one good thing about Android is that the screen sizes are getting bigger so the Action Bar will not take up so much space on your screen and you may not even notice it! We shall see.

My brother has Galaxy Nexus so I can run my app on there for testing purposes... hopefully, haha.

Edit: Hmm found this - http://sriramramani.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/custom-menu/ Possibly a work around if I want to use new SDK features.