How to create a GMail.app like menu

Question

I'm new into Android programming, but making steady progress with it. My app has several activities, and I would like to add an GMail.app like menu to it.

It would be very stunning if someone could give me a hint what I should search the API docs for to create a menu like this. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

If you're targeting API 11 and higher you can just use the ActionBar. If you want to provide the same UI for devices with older versions of Android as well, you can give ActionBarSherlock a try. Here's a tutorial on how to use it.

Answer 2

You can start off by creating a custom Menu. Read up on it here. To have your Menu look a certain way, you'll want to mess with Themes and Styles. You can find a basic tutorial on that here. Your question is somewhat broad so I can't provide specific code examples, but the links should get you on your way.

Answer 3

Specifically what you're looking for in this case is the ActionBar Dropdown Navigation Mode (see the ActionBar docs). Of course, this is only for API level 11 and higher since it involves the ActionBar.