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How to parametrize options of a menu on Android?

I want to show/hide some options of a menu on an Android application depending of some strings that I will set to true/false on strings.xml file.
As an example, I will have these strings on strings.xml file:
<string name="option1">false</string>
<string name="option2">true</string>
<string name="option3">true</string>
So in this case only option2 and option3 have to be shown.
On the other side, I mean, in code, I tried the following:
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_HIDDEN);
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
if((getResources().getString(R.string.option1)).equals("false")){
menu.getItem(R.id.option1).setVisible(false);
}
return true;
}
But option1 is still being shown on the menu.
What should I do to parametrize these options? I could just remove these options but I would like that in the future if my clients want these options active again, I could do it easily changing false value to true.
EDIT: Here is my menu:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<group android:checkableBehavior="single">
<item
android:id="#+id/option1"
android:title="Option 1" />
<item
android:id="#+id/option2"
android:title="Option 2" />
<item
android:id="#+id/option3"
android:title="Option 3" />
....
</group>
</menu>
LAST UPDATE
I have notice that I was getting NullPointerException because the name of the menu was wrong. I have fixed it and now it does not give me any error.
But my problem comes because I have two different layouts that contains two different menus (one in each layout) and I inflate each layout depending of one string that comes on the login.
For example, considering that the string to inflate the first layout is "hello" I display the layouts as follows on onCreate function of my MainActivity:
if("hello".equals(stringForLayout)){
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}else{
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main_secondary);
}
How can I parametrize the options of both menus so if the first one is being shown and I want to hide one option, I would be able to refer to that option of that menu?
Thanks in advance!

If you use Strings (e.g. s1 & s2), you have to compare them like this:
if(s1.equals(s2)) {...}
Btw.: You can also look at Shared Preferences in the android documentation to get a cleaner solution. There you can define boolean variables for the different menu options.

Finally, I found where my problems were.
The problem came because I did not notice that onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu were not used so I deleted them.
Further, as I was using my menu inside a NavigationView I had to use, after inflate the NavigationView on my onCreate function of my MainActivity class, the following statement:
navigationView.getMenu().findItem(R.id.option1).setVisible(false);
There, I did not have any problem to hide my menu item succesfully.

Try this if you want to hide a specific menu item for a specific activity.
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuItem mSearch = menu.findItem(R.id.mSearch);
mSearch.setVisible(false);
invalidateOptionsMenu();
}

Dynamic radio options in the Action Bar (Android)

I thought I should ask a new question for this, but for some context I was able to get the label in position thanks to the good people at How to get a label in the Android action bar
.
So now that I've got that, I want the user to be able to tap the Administrator button and then change it to a different mode (probably just "Administrator", "User", "Guest" to start with but there may be more in the future).
How can I get a list of radio boxes to appear when the button in the top right is clicked? Ideally I want to be able to define those various modes dynamically from within the Java class so that if a new type gets added to the database it will be automatically picked up.
If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it. I have seen a few examples from Googling, but unfortunately none of them involved the sort of customised drawable I'm using - and none of them had dynamically populated radio options either.
Thanks

You probably want to have a menu which contains your different items.
Do something like this to create the menu and inflate your xml:
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);
return true;
}
And then for handling the click events:
#Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case R.id.admin:
switchToAdminUI();
return true;
case R.id.guest:
switchToGuestUI();
return true;
default:
return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}
}
And your my_menu.xml could look something like this:
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item
android:id="#+id/menu_overflow"
android:icon="#drawable/abs_ic_menu_moreoverflow_material"
android:showAsAction="always">
<menu>
<item
android:id="#+id/admin"
android:showAsAction="never"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_admin"
android:title="#string/admin"/>
<item
android:id="#+id/guest"
android:showAsAction="never"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_guest"
android:title="#string/guest"/>
</menu>
</item>
</menu>
You can see the android:showAsAction="always" above, which means that it will always show as an action bar icon, and then you put the sub menu items in there.
Try it out and you can also read more about menus here https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/menus.html

Android ActionbarSherlock show menu button at top

I am trying to implement ActionBarSherlock in my application and I need to show the menu at the top of my application, integrated in action bar. The problem is that it's not working properly. I am using it like this :
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
menu.add("Refresh")
.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_action_refresh)
.setShowAsAction(MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_ALWAYS);
menu.add("Settings")
.setIcon(R.drawable.ic_action_settings)
.setShowAsAction(MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_ALWAYS);
return true;
}
So the thing which I want to achieve is to show at the right side of my action bar a refresh icon and a menu icon, which should open the default menus when clicked. I checked ForcedOverflowItem example in ActionbarSherlock Demos, but it's not working as I want. I need to look the same as in Android 2.+ and in Android 4.+.
Any advices / helps / suggestions how can I get this to work?

You can do an xml file line this.
I saw this in some other post but I cannot track it rigth now.
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item
android:id="#+id/more"
android:showAsAction="always"
android:icon="#drawable/abs__ic_menu_moreoverflow_holo_dark">
<menu>
<item
android:id="#+id/remove"
android:showAsAction="withText|never"
android:title="#string/remove">
</item>
</menu>
</item>
</menu>
Then just inflate it like a normal menu.
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
getSupportMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.overlow, menu);
return true;
}

From what I read in ActionbarSherlock's documentation you cannot force the menu icon to appear in Android 4.+. When the device has a menu button the menu icon does not appear. I guess the guy who wrote ActionbarSherlock knows the subject matter well ;-)

Please read the dorjeduck's answer. If you want have same experience on all devices you have to add custom menu with his submenus. Here this the code sumple:
SubMenu sub = menu.addSubMenu("More");
sub.setIcon(R.drawable.abs__ic_menu_moreoverflow_holo_dark);
sub.add(0, MENU_SETTINGS, 0, "Settings");

ActionbarSherlock : how to remove default text and layout

I am developing Android 2.1 API 7 project. In order to implement action bar, I use the ActionbarSherlock library.
I have successfully used the sherlock library in my project, the problem is that there is always the default text showing on the sherlock action bar which is my project name.
Even I have used menu layout file (res/menu/action_menu.xml):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:id="#+id/test"
android:title="#string/my_test"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"/>
</menu>
I also inflate above layout in my Activity onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu) method:
public class MyActivity extends FragmentActivity{
...
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.action_menu, menu);
return true;
}
}
But on the sherlock action bar, the (by default) project name and a android icon are still showing, and it shows on the left side of my custom menu layout item.
So, how to remove the sherlock library default layout and text(project name)??

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(false)
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false)
The API is exactly that of the native ActionBar for future reference.

Instead of adding two lines, replacing the default logo by change the "icon.png" "header_logo.png" in drawable

ICS - menu item text cut off?

I'm using the standard onCreateOptionsMenu, but on my Nexus w/ICS, when I tap the vertical menu button in the upper right corner, the dropdown context menu is 3/4 off the screen. Basically, I only see the first 3-4 letters in each menu items text.
Any ideas? Maybe I didn't get that memo!! I dont want to setup an ActionBar. I'd think by default, this should work fine?!?
Again, its pretty much standard menu code for < 3.0 SDK.
#Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
if (!isPro()) {
// add menu for ad-free Banner (launches Market)
inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu_pro, menu);
}
inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
return true;
}
Using standard menu XML...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item
android:id="#+id/help"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_menu_help"
android:title="#string/menu_help"/>
<item
android:id="#+id/email"
android:icon="#drawable/email"
android:title="#string/menu_email"/>

I cant really say why its cutting off on the top, but I added this to my manifest.xml.
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Black"
This basically reverts the style back to 2.x menus and places the vertical "dots" on the bottom right.
I actually prefer this over the default compatibility because I still have my icon menus as opposed to plain text-only dropdown menus.
I'd still like to know why the "default" conversion of my menu is screwed up though if anyone can chime in I'll award the solution to that person! (=

You can try to add this to you manifest:
supports-screens android:anyDensity="true"