ActionBarSherlock 3.x – Fix for theme icons

ActionBarSherlock has a nasty bug if you use theme icons.

For example:

styles.xml

<resources xmlns:android=
"http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

<style name="Theme.Test" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light">
<item name="abIconSettings">
@drawable/ic_action_settings_holo_light</item>
</style>

</resources>

attrs.xml

<resources>
 <declare-styleable name="Theme">
 <attr name="abIconSettings" format="reference" />
 </declare-styleable>
</resources>

menu.xml

<menu xmlns:android=
"http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
 <item android:id="@+id/menu_settings"
 android:title="@string/menu_settings"
 android:orderInCategory="100"
 android:showAsAction="always"
 android:icon="?attr/abIconSettings" />
</menu>

If you use the attribute abIconSettings you will see the icon on Android 3.x and above, but on Android 1.6 + 2.x you only see the text instead of the icon.

SimonVT has made a fix for ABS 4.x to display the theme icons correctly on Android 2.x !
I’ve ported this fix to the 3.5.1 release of the ActionBarSherlock.

Open abs_attrs.xml in res/values folder and add this lines:

<!-- Base attributes that are available to all groups. -->
 <declare-styleable name="SherlockMenuGroup">

<!-- The ID of the group. -->
 <attr name="android:id" />

<!-- The category applied to all items within this group.
 (This will be or'ed with the orderInCategory attribute.) -->
 <attr name="android:menuCategory" />

<!-- The order within the category applied to all items within this group.
 (This will be or'ed with the category attribute.) -->
 <attr name="android:orderInCategory" />

<!-- Whether the items are capable of displaying a check mark. -->
 <attr name="android:checkableBehavior" />

<!-- Whether the items are shown/visible. -->
 <attr name="android:visible" />

<!-- Whether the items are enabled. -->
 <attr name="android:enabled" />

</declare-styleable>

<!-- Base attributes that are available to all Item objects. -->
 <declare-styleable name="SherlockMenuItem">

<!-- The ID of the item. -->
 <attr name="android:id" />

<!-- The category applied to the item.
 (This will be or'ed with the orderInCategory attribute.) -->
 <attr name="android:menuCategory" />

<!-- The order within the category applied to the item.
 (This will be or'ed with the category attribute.) -->
 <attr name="android:orderInCategory" />

<!-- The title associated with the item. -->
 <attr name="android:title" />

<!-- The condensed title associated with the item. This is used in situations where the
 normal title may be too long to be displayed. -->
 <attr name="android:titleCondensed" />

<!-- The icon associated with this item. This icon will not always be shown, so
 the title should be sufficient in describing this item. -->
 <attr name="android:icon" />

<!-- The alphabetic shortcut key. This is the shortcut when using a keyboard
 with alphabetic keys. -->
 <attr name="android:alphabeticShortcut" />

<!-- The numeric shortcut key. This is the shortcut when using a numeric (e.g., 12-key)
 keyboard. -->
 <attr name="android:numericShortcut" />

<!-- Whether the item is capable of displaying a check mark. -->
 <attr name="android:checkable" />

<!-- Whether the item is checked. Note that you must first have enabled checking with
 the checkable attribute or else the check mark will not appear. -->
 <attr name="android:checked" />

<!-- Whether the item is shown/visible. -->
 <attr name="android:visible" />

<!-- Whether the item is enabled. -->
 <attr name="android:enabled" />

<!-- Name of a method on the Context used to inflate the menu that will be
 called when the item is clicked. -->
 <attr name="android:onClick" />

<!-- How this item should display in the Action Bar, if present. -->
 <attr name="android:showAsAction" />

<!-- An optional layout to be used as an action view.
 See {@link android.view.MenuItem#setActionView(android.view.View)}
 for more info. -->
 <attr name="android:actionLayout" />

<!-- The name of an optional View class to instantiate and use as an
 action view. See {@link android.view.MenuItem#setActionView(android.view.View)}
 for more info. -->
 <attr name="android:actionViewClass" />

</declare-styleable>

Open MenuInflaterImpl.java  in src/com.actionbarsherlock.internal.view.menu and replace the method readGroup() with this lines:

/**
 * Called when the parser is pointing to a group tag.
 */
 public void readGroup(AttributeSet attrs) {
 TypedArray a = mContext.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup);

 groupId = a.getResourceId(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_id, defaultGroupId);
 groupCategory = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_menuCategory, defaultItemCategory);
 groupOrder = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_orderInCategory, defaultItemOrder);
 groupCheckable = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_checkableBehavior, defaultItemCheckable);
 groupVisible = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_visible, defaultItemVisible);
 groupEnabled = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuGroup_android_enabled, defaultItemEnabled);
a.recycle();
 }

The last step is to replace the method readItem() with this lines:

/**
 * Called when the parser is pointing to an item tag.
 */
 public void readItem(AttributeSet attrs) {
 TypedArray a = mContext.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem);

// Inherit attributes from the group as default value
 itemId = a.getResourceId(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_id, defaultItemId);
 final int category = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_menuCategory, groupCategory);
 final int order = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_orderInCategory, groupOrder);
 itemCategoryOrder = (category & Menu.CATEGORY_MASK) | (order & Menu.USER_MASK);

itemTitle = a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_title);
 itemTitleCondensed = a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_titleCondensed);

 itemIconResId = a.getResourceId(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_icon, 0);

 itemAlphabeticShortcut = getShortcut(a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_alphabeticShortcut));

 itemNumericShortcut = getShortcut(a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_numericShortcut));

 if (a.hasValue(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_checkable)) {
 itemCheckable = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_checkable, false) ? 1 : 0;
 } else {
 // Item does not have attribute, use the group's (group can have one more state
 // for checkable that represents the exclusive checkable)
 itemCheckable = groupCheckable;
 }

 itemChecked = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_checked, defaultItemChecked);
 itemVisible = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_visible, groupVisible);
 itemEnabled = a.getBoolean(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_enabled, groupEnabled);
 itemShowAsAction = a.getInt(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_showAsAction, -1);
 itemListenerMethodName = a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_onClick);
 itemActionViewLayout = a.getResourceId(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_actionLayout, 0);
 itemActionViewClassName = a.getString(R.styleable.SherlockMenuItem_android_actionViewClass);

 a.recycle();

itemAdded = false;
 }

All credits goes to SimonVT who added this fix for ABS 4.x!
Here is the original Google Groups thread:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups&hl=de#!topic/actionbarsherlock/hL4w26bIXyg%5B1-25%5D