How to hide or add menu items for Flavor?

Question

I have an app that has 3 different flavors, full, part1 and part2.

All different flavors have different package names, so I can ship them as different apps.

Now I want that only part1 gets a menu item called Reload. The other 2 flavors shouldn't have this menu item. Is this possible?

I tried the following with the menu resources:

app
|
+-src
  |
  +-full
  |
  +-main
  | |
  | +-res
  |   |
  |   +-menu
  |     |
  |     +-main_activity.xml
  |
  +-part1
  | |
  | +-res
  |   |
  |   +-menu
  |     |
  |     +-main_activity.xml
  |
  +-part2

Where main_activity.xml for part1 is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_reload"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_reload"
        android:title="@string/action_reload"
        app:showAsAction="always"/>
</menu>

And main_activity.xml for main is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
</menu>

However, if I build the app in any other build variant than part1, I get a compilation error in my MainActivity where I need to react to the menu selection:

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.action_reload: // Compile error: This item is not available
            // TODO reload
            return true;
        default:
            return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }
}

It's quite obvious why that is. But do you have any suggestion what the solution is to customize menus for different build flavors?

Answer 1

There's another way - create value file with boolean resource, with different value for each flavor e.g.:

main/res/values/bool.xml :

 <resources>
        <bool name="show_reload">false</bool>
    </resources>

part1/res/values/bool.xml :

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <bool name="show_reload">true</bool>
</resources>

and then in your menu reource set the visibility value dependent on resource:

<menu ..>
    <item ..
      android:visible="@bool/show_reload"
      ..
    />
</menu>

Answer 2

You can define the content of the onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) method in a helper and then using flavors load the needed helper :

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    HelperPart.selectItem(this, item);
}


// Helper loaded for flavor "part1"
static class MenuHelper{ 
    public static boolean selectItem(Activity act, MenuItem item){
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.action_reload: 
                // TODO reload
                return true;
            default:
                return act.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
        }
    }
}

// Helper loaded for flavor "part2" and "full"
static class MenuHelper{
    public static boolean selectItem(Activity act, MenuItem item){
        // Do nothing
    }
}

Answer 3

If You don't want to copy whole class file, but to detect flavour or setting for any flavour and adjust it then do this:

In gradle file create config field:

defaultConfig {
    ...
    buildConfigField "boolean", "SHOW_MY_MENU_ITEM", "true"
}
productFlavors {
    FooFlavour {
        ...
        buildConfigField "boolean", "SHOW_MY_MENU_ITEM", "false"
    }
}

then build gradle. You can access this config field in Activity like this:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.foo_menu, menu);
    if (!BuildConfig.SHOW_MY_MENU_ITEM) {
        MenuItem myItem = menu.findItem(R.id.my_menu_item);
        myItem.setVisible(false);
    }
    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Answer 4

Create a MainActivity in the main source folder where you handle the normal common code. Create another MainActivity in the part1 source folder where you override onOptionsItemSelected where it's not a problem to have references to R.id.action_reload. That should work.

Answer 5

You can also create another xml file in the menu folder and create the same resource id inside it, for example:

app
|
+-src
  |
  +-full
  |
  +-main
  | |
  | +-res
  |   |
  |   +-menu
  |     |
  |     +-main_activity.xml
  |     +-dummy_menus.xml

And then in the dummy menu create an item with the same id. You just won't use it because it will never be selected, as it never was inflated.