Android: customize application's menu (e.g background color)

Question

What is the way (if there is a way) to customize the menu (the one triggered by the MENU button of the phone). I'm especially interested in two things:

• changing the background color from the standard light gray into a darker gray
• how the menu items are aligned. I have 4 items and they are automatically aligned 2x2, but I would prefer to have them all in one line (1x4)

Answer 1

Not with the built-in menu framework.

You are welcome to intercept the MENU button (via onKeyDown() or something) and render what you want, but bear in mind that users will be expecting it to look like the rest of the menus do on their device.

Answer 2

You can also just implement the "onCreateOptionsMenu" method, that is usually used to display the standard menu, and display whatever you want in this case.

In my game, I implemented it to display a "Game Paused" dialog box when the menu button is pressed...