android - How to set a font for the Options menu?

Question

When I create an Options Menu the items seem to default to the native "sans" font. When I look at commercial apps they mostly seem to do the same thing. Is it possible to set the font size, color weight or typeface for Option Menu items?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can customize the option menu, including:

1. Add a custom font

2. Change font size

3. Change font color

4. Set background to a Drawable resource (e.g. image, border, gradient)

To change background to a border or gradient you have to create a resource folder in res called drawable and, inside it, create the border XML or gradient XML.

This can all be done programatically as shown below:

public class CustomMenu extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    }

    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(android.view.Menu menu) {
        MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.cool_menu, menu);
        getLayoutInflater().setFactory(new Factory() {
            public View onCreateView(String name, Context context,
                    AttributeSet attrs) {

                if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(
                        "com.android.internal.view.menu.IconMenuItemView")) {
                    try {
                        LayoutInflater li = LayoutInflater.from(context);
                        final View view = li.createView(name, null, attrs);
                        new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
                            public void run() {
                                // set the background drawable if you want that
                                //or keep it default -- either an image, border
                                //gradient, drawable, etc.
                                view.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.myimage);
                                ((TextView) view).setTextSize(20); 

                                // set the text color
                                Typeface face = Typeface.createFromAsset(
                                        getAssets(),"OldeEnglish.ttf");     
                                ((TextView) view).setTypeface(face);
                                ((TextView) view).setTextColor(Color.RED);
                            }
                        });
                        return view;
                    } catch (InflateException e) {
                        //Handle any inflation exception here
                    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
                        //Handle any ClassNotFoundException here
                    }
                }
                return null;
            }
        });
        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
        case R.id.AboutUs:
            Intent i = new Intent("com.test.demo.ABOUT");
            startActivity(i);
            break;
        case R.id.preferences:
            Intent p = new Intent("com.test.demo.PREFS");
            startActivity(p);
            break;
        case R.id.exit:
            finish();
            break;
        }
        return false;
    }
}

Dont forget to create folder called menu in res folder, and inside the menu folder create an XML for your menu (e.g. cool_menu.xml) such as this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item  android:title="about"android:id="@+id/AboutUs" /> 
    <item android:title="Prefs" android:id="@+id/preferences" /> 
    <item android:title="Exit" android:id="@+id/exit" /> 
</menu>

Then the output will be something like this: