Part 1 – Menu & Activity Theme

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In this little video series we are going to build a navigation drawer from scratch. When we click any of the menu items in our navigation drawer, we will switch between different fragments or trigger another action.

In part 1 we will add the dependency for the design support library and create the vector icons, as well as the menu xml file with a menu group and multiple menu items, which each have an id, a title and an icon set to them. We will also prepare our activity theme by removing the action bar with the windowActionBar and windowNoTitle attributes, so we can later add a toolbar instead.

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Links & Dependenciesdrawer_menu.xmlstyles.xmlAndroidManifest.xml

Design Support Library:

developer.android.com/topic/libraries/support-library/packages.html#design

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:showIn="navigation_view">

    <group android:checkableBehavior="single">
        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_message"
            android:icon="@drawable/ic_message"
            android:title="Message" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_chat"
            android:icon="@drawable/ic_chat"
            android:title="Chat" />
        <item
            android:id="@+id/nav_profile"
            android:icon="@drawable/ic_profile"
            android:title="Profile" />
    </group>

    <item android:title="Communicate">
        <menu>
            <item
                android:id="@+id/nav_share"
                android:icon="@drawable/ic_share"
                android:title="Share" />
            <item
                android:id="@+id/nav_send"
                android:icon="@drawable/ic_send"
                android:title="Send" />
        </menu>
    </item>

</menu>

<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    </style>

    <style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
        <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
        <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
    </style>

</resources>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.codinginflow.navigationdrawerexample">

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity
            android:name=".MainActivity"
            android:theme="@style/AppTheme.NoActionBar">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>