Context Menu in Android

Chintan Rathod

6y24.7k8100Article

Context Menu MenuContext Menu in AndroidLong PressLong Touch

8 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Chintan Rathod14y ago
Sorry my friend. Derby can't be used in Android Application. Here is the link --> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-4458 . You can read whole issue given in Apache.
Albin Ratheesh14y ago
very use full tutorial for all programming languages.MR.Chintan can i connect Apache Derby DataBase with Android Application.
Abhi Kumar14y ago
Very useful article. Thanks for sharing.
- Chintan Rathod14y ago
  Thank you for your reply Mr. abhi...
Jimmy Underwood14y ago
Thanks for sharing
- Chintan Rathod14y ago
  Thank you jimmy for your reply...
Animesh Lakkar14y ago
Mr.Chintan you have provided a helpful info about the context menu
- Chintan Rathod14y ago
  Thank you for your great comment...

Introduction

If you have been writing software applications for a while, I am sure you are familiar with context menus. A context menu is a list of action items popup when you right click on a screen in an application.

In an Android phone, if we long touch EditText, it will open a list of items and when you click on these items, there are some actions corresponding to them. This is known as a Context Menu in Android. Context Menu is generally helpful while you want to give some specific additional functionality to your Views. Views are nothing but application's EditText, Buttons etc.

In this step by step tutorial, we will see how to build a context menu based Android application.

Step 1: Create "mymenu.xml"

Right Click "your project" -> new -> Android XML file

Step 2: Edit your "mymenu.xml" file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item android:id="@+id/CutText" android:title="Cut"></item>
<item android:id="@+id/CopyText" android:title="Copy"></item>
<item android:id="@+id/PasteText" android:title="Paste"></item>
</group>
</menu>

Step 3: Edit your "ContextMenu.java" file

Before start editing, let's have a look at the Context menu work. A context menu generally works on a View. For that, first, we need to "register" our view (or views) that will display the Context Menu on long touch. This is done by using "registerForContextMenu". It takes a View as an argument.

import android.view.ContextMenu;
import android.view.ContextMenu.ContextMenuInfo;

Used to Additional information regarding the creation of the context menu

CContextMenu.java

package com.CContextMenu;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.ContextMenu;
import android.view.MenuInflater;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ContextMenu.ContextMenuInfo;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.Toast;
public class CContextMenuActivity extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
EditText ed=(EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText1);
registerForContextMenu(ed);
//You can write multiple register statement as per your need
}
@Override
public void onCreateContextMenu(ContextMenu menu, View v,
ContextMenuInfo menuInfo) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
MenuInflater inflater=getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.mymenu, menu);
super.onCreateContextMenu(menu, v, menuInfo);
}
@Override
public boolean onContextItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
String str="";
if(item.getItemId()==R.id.CutText)
str= "Cut";
else if(item.getItemId()==R.id.CopyText)
str= "Copy";
else if(item.getItemId()==R.id.PasteText)
str= "Paste";
Toast.makeText(CContextMenuActivity.this, str,1000).show();
return super.onContextItemSelected(item);
}
}

OnCreateContextMenu have 3 arguments

ContextMenu -> Used to build Context Menu.
View -> The view for which the context menu is being built.
ContextMenuInfo -> Extra information about the item for which the context menu should be shown.

OnContextItemSelected have 1 argument