Honeycomb menu button

[mola2alex]

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?

[Joe ... Ward]

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.

[mola2alex]

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.

[Joe ... Ward · Accepted solution]

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.

[mola2alex]

OK thanks.  I decided to update the app to give it a honeycomb drop down menu rather than the menu at the bottom.  I did it for a few reasons being A) latest renderings of Android ICS shows only 3 soft buttons (no menu) and B) Easier to port my app to iOS and C) more flexible to add many buttons or settings.  Pressing the menu button on the android phone (2.2/2.3) will pop down the menu.  It is on the market now called  Football Dood Free.

[Joe ... Ward]

I noticed this post on the subject on the Android developer blog: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/09/preparing-for-handsets.html. The menu button on phones is still supported in Ice Cream Sandwich. For Android apps that use the standard Android action bar, the OS handles the menu automatically. This still leaves AIR apps with the problem of deciding when to draw a menu button if they run on both phones and tablets.

[mola2alex]

yeah, I would assume they would support it to maintain compatibility of pre HC and ICS apps but I think that apps developed on ICS may use the HC method.  I could be totally wrong though...

[mola2alex]

It seems that something has changed.  When I compile using CS6 + Air 3.3, I now get a menu button even with sdktargetversion=11.  Any way to target 11 but get rid of menu button?