Developing "Facebook Sidebar Menu" for Android

Sliding sidebar, sliding menu, ribbon menu, animation layout, side view, action menu.....

Many apps are now adapting to the new "side-bar" menu that Facebook has come up with. However many people don't know that this is not a native look / view in the android app. Facebook are actually using some kind of Javascript/HTML/CSS coding to display this view, and only few features such as the "settings" page are actually native android code.

I asked to develop a similar view in an existing android application. I needed to do this in native android / java code, not javascript or any kind of web view that Facebook seem to be using. After searching the web I came across a number of existing projects where users have been attempting to do the same thing. 

The following are example libraries or source codes that can be used within android code to display this side bar menu effect:

https://github.com/walkingice/gui-sliding-sidebar

https://github.com/gitgrimbo/android-sliding-menu-demo

https://github.com/korovyansk/android-fb-like-slideout-navigation

https://github.com/darvds/RibbonMenu

https://github.com/johnkil/SideNavigation

https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu

https://github.com/bk138/LibSlideMenu

https://github.com/StevenRudenko/ActionsContentView

Out of the many views and different ways of effectively producing the same look, I ended up starting with the Animation Layout available from the https://github.com/walkingice/gui-sliding-sidebar example above and modifying it to work with my requirements. 

All of the examples above aren't perfect answers to developing this view but if you are looking to write this type of view in native android code then they are a great starting point.

Other android apps using a similar view for examples:

Facebook, Google+, Evernote