Popup Menu in Android With Example

In Android development, Menus are an important part of the user interface, providing users with easy access to common functionalities and ensuring a smooth and consistent experience throughout the application. In Android, we have three types of Menus available to define a set of options and actions in our android applications. The Menus in android applications are the following:

• Android Options Menu: Android Options Menu is a primary collection of menu items in an android application and is useful for actions that have a global impact on the search application.
• Android Context Menu: Android Context Menu is a floating menu that only appears when the user clicks for a long time on an element and is useful for elements that affect the selected content or context frame.
• Android Popup Menu: Android Popup Menu displays a list of items in a vertical list which presents the view that invoked the menu and is useful to provide an overflow of actions related to specific content.

In this article, we are going to discuss the Popup Menu. A PopupMenu displays a Menu in a popup window anchored to a View. The popup will be shown below the anchored View if there is room(space) otherwise above the View. If any IME(Input Method Editor) is visible the popup will not overlap it until the View(to which the popup is anchored) is touched. Touching outside the popup window will dismiss it.

Example

In this example, we are going to make a popup menu anchored to a Button and on click, the popup menu will appear, and on a touch of the popup menu item, a Toast message will be shown. A sample video is given below to get an idea about what we are going to do in this article.

Note that we are going to implement this project using both Java and Koltin language. 

Step By Step Implementation

Step 1: Create a New Project in Android Studio

To create a new project in Android Studio please refer to How to Create/Start a New Project in Android Studio.

The code for that has been given in both Java and Kotlin Programming Language for Android.

Step 2: Working with the XML Files

Next, go to the activity_main.xml file, which represents the UI of the project. Below is the code for the activity_main.xml file.

activity_main.xml:

<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="@color/white"
    android:id="@+id/main"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/clickBtn"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:backgroundTint="@android:color/holo_green_dark"
        android:text="Click Me"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

Design UI:

Step 3: Create Menu Directory and Menu file

First, we will create a menu director which will contain the menu file. Go to app > res > right-click > New > Android Resource Directory and give the Directory name and Resource type as menu.

Now, we will create a popup_menu file inside that menu resource directory. Go to app > res > menu > right-click > New > Menu Resource File and create a menu resource file and name it popup_menu. In the popup_menu file, we will add menu items. Below is the code snippet for the popup_menu.xml file.

popup_menu.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/java"
        android:title="Java" />

    <item
        android:id="@+id/kotlin"
        android:title="Kotlin" />

    <item
        android:id="@+id/android"
        android:title="Android" />

    <item
        android:id="@+id/react_native"
        android:title="React Native" />
</menu>

Design UI:

Step 4: Working with the MainActivity file

In the MainActivity file, we will get the reference of the Button and initialize it. Add onClick behavior to the button and inflate the popup menu to it. Below is the code snippet for the MainActivity file.

MainActivity File:

package org.geeksforgeeks.demo;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.PopupMenu;
import android.widget.Toast;
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    private Button button;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        // Referencing and Initializing the button
        button = findViewById(R.id.clickBtn);

        // Setting onClick behavior for the button
        button.setOnClickListener(v -> {
            // Initializing the popup menu and giving the reference as current context
            PopupMenu popupMenu = new PopupMenu(MainActivity.this, button);

            // Inflating popup menu from popup_menu.xml file
            popupMenu.getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.popup_menu, popupMenu.getMenu());

            // Handling menu item click events
            popupMenu.setOnMenuItemClickListener(menuItem -> {
                Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "You Clicked " + menuItem.getTitle(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                return true;
            });

            // Showing the popup menu
            popupMenu.show();
        });
    }
}

package org.geeksforgeeks.demo

import android.os.Bundle
import android.widget.Button
import android.widget.PopupMenu
import android.widget.Toast
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    private lateinit var button: Button

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        // Referencing and Initializing the button
        button = findViewById(R.id.clickBtn)

        // Setting onClick behavior to the button
        button.setOnClickListener {
            // Initializing the popup menu and giving the reference as current context
            val popupMenu = PopupMenu(this@MainActivity, button)

            // Inflating popup menu from popup_menu.xml file
            popupMenu.menuInflater.inflate(R.menu.popup_menu, popupMenu.menu)
            popupMenu.setOnMenuItemClickListener { menuItem ->
                // Toast message on menu item clicked
                Toast.makeText(this@MainActivity, "You Clicked " + menuItem.title, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show()
                true
            }
            // Showing the popup menu
            popupMenu.show()
        }
    }
}

Output: