How to Change Menu Item Text Dynamically in Android

How to change menu item text dynamically in Android

As JxDarkAngel suggested, calling this from anywhere in your Activity,

invalidateOptionsMenu();

and then overriding:

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
  MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.bedSwitch);
    if (item.getTitle().equals("Set to 'In bed'")) {
        item.setTitle("Set to 'Out of bed'");
        inBed = false;
    } else {
        item.setTitle("Set to 'In bed'");
        inBed = true;
    }
  return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
}

is a much better choice. I used the answer from https://stackoverflow.com/a/17496503/568197

Android, change title of Menu item programmatically

Because Menu's getItem() method returns a menu item at a given index as opposed to passing in a resource ID which can potentially throw an IndexOutOfBoundsException as mentioned here in the docs. Instead, you should be using index values so it'd be 0 for the first menu item, menu_1, and 1 for the other menu item, menu_2.

Referencing and changing a menu item

You are referencing the menu item from the wrong place. The following solution should work.

public class TestActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

  private Menu menu;

  @Override
  public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu_written_note, menu);

    this.menu = menu;

    return true;
  }

  private void updateMenuTitle() {
    MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.itEdit);
    item.setTitle("Test");
  }

}

How to replace menu dynamically with another in Android

Create and prepare the options menu for changing and its item selection method

 @Override
    public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        menu.clear();
        MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
        if(menuString=="red"){
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.red_menu, menu);
        }else if(menuString=="green"){
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.green_menu, menu);
        }
        return true;
    }


 @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Handle item selection
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.new_game:
                return true;
            case R.id.help:
                return true;
            default:
                return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
        }
    }

Like whenever you want to change menu call

String menuString="red or green";
invalidateOptionsMenu();

Like others told, if you want to have static menu use onCreateOptionsMenu, and if you want to change its visibility dynamically use onPrepareOptionsMenu along with onCreateOptionsMenu

How can I dynamically create menu items?

How to Dynamically Add Menu Items to an Android Activity

public class yourActivity extends Activity {
    ...
    private static final int MENU_ADD = Menu.FIRST;
    private static final int MENU_LIST = MENU.FIRST + 1;
    private static final int MENU_REFRESH = MENU.FIRST + 2;
    private static final int MENU_LOGIN = MENU.FIRST + 3;

    /**
     * Use if your menu is static (i.e. unchanging)
     */
    /*
    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
        menu.add(0, MENU_ADD, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-add-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-add-icon);
        menu.add(0, MENU_LIST, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-list-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-list-icon);
        menu.add(0, MENU_REFRESH, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-refresh-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-refresh-icon);
        menu.add(0, MENU_LOGIN, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-login-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-login-icon);
        return true;
    }
    */

    /**
     * Gets called every time the user presses the menu button.
     * Use if your menu is dynamic.
     */
    @Override
    public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        menu.clear();
        if(enableAdd)
            menu.add(0, MENU_ADD, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-add-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-add-icon);
        if(enableList)
            menu.add(0, MENU_LIST, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-list-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-list-icon);
        if(enableRefresh)
            menu.add(0, MENU_REFRESH, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-refresh-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-refresh-icon);
        if(enableLogin)
            menu.add(0, MENU_LOGIN, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-login-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-login-icon);
        return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);

        switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case MENU_ADD: doAddStuff(); break;
        case MENU_LIST: doListStuff(); break;
        case MENU_REFRESH: doRefreshStuff(); break;
        case MENU_LOGIN: doLoginStuff(); break;
        }
        return false;
    }

---

The following specific example adds a MENU_LOGOUT option if the user is logged in.

    private static final int MENU_LOGOUT = MENU.FIRST + 4;

    public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        ...
        if(auth.isLoggedIn()) {
            menu.add(0, MENU_LOGOUT, Menu.NONE, R.string.your-logout-text).setIcon(R.drawable.your-logout-icon);
        }
        ...
    }

    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        ...
        case MENU_LOGOUT:
            if(auth.isLoggedIn()) {
                doLogout();
            } else {
                Toast.makeText(this, "You must have somehow been logged out between the time the menu button was pressed and now.", Toast.DURATION_LONG).show();
            }
            break;
        ...
    }

That's all there is to it.

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