Options menu on ICS with ActionBar sherlock

Question

My original application was written for Android 2.1. Afterwards, I've added compatibilty library and ActionBar Sherlock. Now, I would like to present options menu as overflow in the action bar and it works as expected. However, on devices without menu button, I still get default menu bar at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on it opens the options menu from the action bar. See image below:

What is worse, this bar shows even on activities that have no options menu defined.

Regarding my relevant code, there is nothing special about it. Inflating options menu:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
        return true;
    }

main_menu.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_flag" android:title="@string/I_STR_LANGUAGE" android:id="@+id/menu_lang" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
    <item android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_pin_change" android:title="@string/change_pin" android:id="@+id/menu_pin_change" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
     <item android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_about" android:id="@+id/menu_about" android:title="@string/about_application" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
    <item android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_exit" android:id="@+id/menu_logout" android:title="@string/I_CLOSE" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
</menu>

Application theme inherits from DarkActionBar Sherlock Theme

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar">

Is there a way to hide system menu bar? Can options menu be presented only from action bar? Can it at least be hidden for activites without options menu?

[UPDATE:] <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7" />

Answer 1

You need to modify your uses-sdk node to target the latest API, like so :

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7" android:targetSdkVersion="18"/>