Work with Android devices without the MENU key

Question

Some users tell me that my Android application is not used because their device does not have a MENU key.

What is the best way to handle these devices? Is it possible to determine whether the device has a MENU key and show the menu button only in this case?

And most importantly, how do you test this in a simulator?

Thanks.

Change Apparently, the problem was that users did not know that the Menu key was called by the Menu key.

Change In addition, some unofficial Android devices, such as Eken and aPad, do not have a physical menu key.

Answer 1

I am very surprised that there are devices without a Menu key, as indicated in my comment.

As mentioned in this recent question, there really is no API for detecting this: Programmatically detect for hardware call / key hangs

It would also seem that there is no “menu key” hardware key option that you can emulate using AVD:
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/avd.html#hardwareopts

Answer 2

Starting with Android 3.0 (API level 11), devices do not need to have a dedicated menu button. (More on this here: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/menus.html )

This means that you must provide other users with the ability to activate the menu. You can create a button and call openOptionsMenu (); when you press.

Answer 3

Check if the device has a menu key:

ViewConfiguration.get(context).hasPermanentMenuKey();