---
title: 2. Grouping Actions
---

If some part of the functionality requires to implement several actions or actions are simply too many and overload the menu they can be joined into groups.

### 2.1. Simple action groups

In this case the group will be available as a top-level menu item, action will be represented as drop-down menu items.

#### 2.1.1. Creating simple action groups

Grouping can be done by extending adding `<group>` attribute to `<actions>`
[plugin.xml](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-sdk-docs/blob/master/code_samples/register_actions/resources/META-INF/plugin.xml)
file.

```xml
<actions>
    <group id="SimpleGroup" text="Custom Action Group" popup="true">
    </group>
</actions>
```

#### 2.1.2. Binding action groups to UI component

The following sample shows how to place a custom action group on top of the editor popup menu:

```xml
<actions>
    <group id="SimpleGroup" text="Custom Action Group" popup="true">
        <add-to-group group-id="EditorPopupMenu" anchor="first"/>
    </group>
</actions>
```

#### 2.1.3. Adding actions to the group

To create an action we need to extend
[AnAction.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/AnAction.java)
class:

```java
public class GroupedAction extends AnAction {
    @Override
    public void update(AnActionEvent event) {
        event.getPresentation().setEnabledAndVisible(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(AnActionEvent event) {
        //Does nothing
    }
}
```

And then the actions needs to be registered in the newly created group:

```xml
<action>
    <group id="SimpleGroup" text="Custom Action Group" popup="true">
        <add-to-group group-id="EditorPopupMenu" anchor="first"/>
            <action class="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.GroupedAction" id="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.GroupedAction"
                      text="Grouped Action" description="Grouped Action Demo">
            </action>
    </group>
</actions>
```

After performing the steps described above the action group nad it's content will be available in the editor popup menu:

![Simple Action Group](img/grouped_action.png)

### 2.2. Working with DefaultActionGroup

In some cases we need to implement some specific behaviour of a group of actions dependently on the context.
The steps below are meant to show how to make a group of actions available and visible if a certain condition is met and how to set up a group icon dynamically.
In our case the condition is: an instance of the editor is available.

#### 2.2.1. Extending DefaultActionGroup

[DefaultActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/DefaultActionGroup.java)
is a default implementations of
[ActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/ActionGroup.java)
and used to add children actions and separators between them to a group.
This class is used if a set of actions belonging to the group is fixed, which is the majority of all the cases.

Firstly,
[DefaultActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/DefaultActionGroup.java)
should be derived:

```java
public class CustomDefaultActionGroup extends DefaultActionGroup {
    @Override
    public void update(AnActionEvent event) {
    }
}
```

#### 2.2.2. Registering action group

As in case with the simple action group, the inheritor of
[DefaultActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/DefaultActionGroup.java)
should be declared in
[plugin.xml](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-sdk-docs/blob/master/code_samples/register_actions/resources/META-INF/plugin.xml)
file:

```xml
<actions>
    <group id="CustomDefaultActionGroup" class="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.CustomDefaultActionGroup" popup="true"
           text="DefaultActionGroup Inheritor" description="Default Action Group Demo">
        <add-to-group group-id="ToolsMenu" anchor="last"/>
  </group>
</actions>
```

#### 2.2.3. Creating an action

[AnAction.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/AnAction.java)
needs to be extended:

```java
{% include /code_samples/register_actions/src/org/jetbrains/tutorials/actions/CustomGroupedAction.java %}
```

#### 2.2.4. Adding actions to the group

Action's class should be registered in
[plugin.xml](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-sdk-docs/blob/master/code_samples/register_actions/resources/META-INF/plugin.xml)
:

```xml
<actions>
    <group id="CustomDefaultActionGroup" class="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.CustomDefaultActionGroup" popup="true"
         text="DefaultActionGroup Inheritor" description="Default Action Group Demo">
        <add-to-group group-id="ToolsMenu" anchor="last"/>
        <action class="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.CustomGroupedAction" id="CustomGroupedAction"
                  text="Custom Grouped Action" description="Custom Grouped Action Demo"/>
    </group>
</actions>
```

#### 2.2.5. Providing specific behaviour for the group

In this case we override `public void update(AnActionEvent event);` method to make the group visible as a *Tools* menu item,
however, it will be enabled only if there's an instance of the editor available. Also a custom icon is set up:

```java
public class CustomDefaultActionGroup extends DefaultActionGroup {
    @Override
    public void update(AnActionEvent event) {
        Editor editor = event.getData(CommonDataKeys.EDITOR);
        event.getPresentation().setVisible(true);
        event.getPresentation().setEnabled(editor != null);
        event.getPresentation().setIcon(AllIcons.General.Error);
    }
}
```

After compiling and running the code sample above, *Tools* menu item should contain an extra group of action with a user-defined icon:

![Default Action Group](img/default_action_group.png)

### 2.3. Action groups with variable actions set

If a set of actions belonging to a custom actions group may vary dependently on the context,
we need to work with
[ActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/ActionGroup.java).
In this case set of actions to be grouped can be dynamically defined.

#### 2.3.1. Creating variable action group

To create a group of actions with a variable actions set we extend
[ActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/ActionGroup.java)
first:
```java
public class BaseActionGroup extends ActionGroup {
}
```

#### 2.3.2. Registering variable action group

To register the group `<group>` attribute needs to be placed in the *`<actions>`* section of
[plugin.xml](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-sdk-docs/blob/master/code_samples/register_actions/resources/META-INF/plugin.xml):

```xml
<actions>
    <group id="BaseActionGroup" class="org.jetbrains.tutorials.actions.BaseActionGroup" popup="true"
              text="ActionGroup Demo" description="Extending AnAction Demo">
        <add-to-group group-id="ToolsMenu" anchor="first"/>
    </group>
</actions>
```
**Note**: Since the set of actions is defined dynamically no action definitions should be placed in
[plugin.xml](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-sdk-docs/blob/master/code_samples/register_actions/resources/META-INF/plugin.xml).
If `<group>` attribute contains any static action definition an exception will be thrown.
For statically defined group of action use
[DefaultActionGroup.java](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/DefaultActionGroup.java)

#### 2.3.3. Accessing children actions

An array of children actions should be returned by the method `public AnAction[] getChildren(AnActionEvent anActionEvent);` of the a created group:

```java
public class BaseActionGroup extends ActionGroup {
    @NotNull
    @Override
    public AnAction[] getChildren(AnActionEvent anActionEvent) {
        return new AnAction[0];
    }
}
```

#### 2.3.4. Adding children actions to the group

To make the group contain actions a non-empty array of
[AnAction.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/AnAction.java)
elements should be returned:

```java
public class BaseActionGroup extends ActionGroup {
    @NotNull
    @Override
    public AnAction[] getChildren(AnActionEvent anActionEvent) {
        return new AnAction[]{new MyAction()};
    }
    class MyAction extends AnAction {
        public MyAction() {
           super("Dynamically Added Action");
        }
        @Override
        public void actionPerformed(@NotNull AnActionEvent anActionEvent) {
        }
    }
}
```

After providing an implementation of
[AnAction.java](upsource:///platform/editor-ui-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/actionSystem/AnAction.java)
and making it return a non-empty array of action Tools Menu should contain an extra group of action:

![Dynamic Action Group](img/dynamic_action_group.png)