How to handle menu button click in actionbar environment

Question

As related to the new guidelines I replaced my standard menu with the actionbar. Due to consistent design I want to use the actionbar for all devices where it is possible to use the action bar. But there are a lot of devices which support actionbar and still have a menu button. How to handle this devices? I think it feels wront in some way, if the user clicks on the menu button and nothing happens. I know, that I can catch the button click but what to do then? How to react on this click? Is there some method/usual way to point the user's attention to the actionbar?

Answer 1

If you have overflow menu items, then the menu button will open the overflow menu. If you don't, then yes, the menu button will do nothing. I don't think that this behaviour is strange to users - there are many apps without menus. Otherwise, I suppose you could have your action bar or your menu items flash a different colour briefly. But this is by no means standard.

Answer 2

All of your action items, including overflow items, will appear when a user clicks the menu button. It's already taken care of.

The menu options will pop up from the bottom as if using the old-style menu.