Android : Get view Reference to a Menu Item

I plan to use quick actions UI pattern in my application. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3059155/android-quick-actions-ui-pattern . The quick action window needs a pivot view to stick to.

    quickAction.show(View pivotView);

I intend to use quick action for the menu Item, I can get access to the item that is clicked. But the problem is i need to reference a view from the menu item so that i can pass it to the quick action.

How can i get reference to a view in the menuItem that is selected.

You can achieve this by providing your menu item with an actionViewClass property in xml and then you will be able to get the pivot view u wanted. The code would be something like this

<item
    android:id="@+id/menu_find"
    android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    android:actionViewClass="android.widget.ImageButton"
    />

In your OnCreateOptionsMenu do this

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
	super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
	getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_search, menu);
	locButton = (ImageButton) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_find).getActionView();
	locButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
		
		@Override
		public void onClick(View v) {
			// TODO Auto-generated method stub
			createPopup();
			mQuickAction.show(v);
		}
	});
	return true;
}

Old question, but I ran into some issues with the actionViewClass attribute. For anyone who runs into this later...

Calling findViewById(R.id.mnu_item) in onOptionsItemSelected will return a View anchor.

QuickActions on the MenuItems aren't good design, but I found that they are the simplest way to implement submenus with custom backgrounds.

Inorder to get reference Views of menu items we need to do this,

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.section, menu);

    new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {

            final View menuItemView = findViewById(R.id.action_preview);
            // SOME OF YOUR TASK AFTER GETTING VIEW REFERENCE

        }
    });


    return true;
}

An update for anyone that want to find the menu view item for other reasons (like I wanted).

If you have access to and use AppCompat's Toolbar there is a way. It's not the most efficient way, but it's the easiest way I've found to access the menu item's view.

public void onViewCreated(View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
	Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) view.findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
	
	// Find Menu
	for (int toolbarChildIndex = 0; toolbarChildIndex < toolbar.getChildCount(); toolbarChildIndex++) {
		View view = toolbar.getChildAt(toolbarChildIndex);
		
		// Found Menu
		if (view instanceof ActionMenuView) {
			ActionMenuView menuView = (ActionMenuView) view;
			
			// All menu items
			for (int menuChildIndex = 0; menuChildIndex < menuView.getChildCount(); menuChildIndex++) {
				ActionMenuItemView itemView = (ActionMenuItemView) menuView.getChildAt(menuChildIndex);
				// Do something to itemView...
			}
		}
	}
}

Universal code which also works on Android 10

/**
* pass toolbar and menu item id, i.e. R.id.menu_refresh
*/
@Nullable
@Throws(
    IllegalAccessException::class,
    NoSuchFieldException::class
)
fun getMenuItemView(toolbar: Toolbar?, @IdRes menuItemId: Int): View? {
    val mMenuView: Field = Toolbar::class.java.getDeclaredField("mMenuView")
    mMenuView.setAccessible(true)
    val menuView: Any? = mMenuView.get(toolbar)
    (menuView as ViewGroup).children.forEach {
        if(it.id == menuItemId) {
            return it
        }
    }
    return null
}

Kotlin!!

override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu): Boolean {

  /*Adding menu items to action bar*/
  menuInflater.inflate(R.menu.main, menu)

  /*Getting menu item*/
  val locButton: MenuItem = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_find)

  /*Creating click listener*/
  locButton.setOnMenuItemClickListener{
    /*TODO: Handle it*/
    true
  }

  return true;
}

in the main activity class, best to override the onOptionsItemSelected(...) method; should be something as below:

public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
  // the id is of type int
  int someId = item.getItemId();
  // can use an if() or switch() statement to check if id is selected
  //a Toast message can be used to show item is selected
}