A demo Android app of AppCompat using Gradle to build. Write-up here: http://www.recursiverobot.com/post/59267986367/setting-up-the-new-actionbarcompat-in-android-studio

Activity.java

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

activity_in_mainfest.xml

<activity
    android:name="com.example.actionbarcompatexample.MainActivity"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/Theme.MyCompatTheme">

build.gradle

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.5.+'
    }
}
apply plugin: 'android'

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

android {
    compileSdkVersion 18
    buildToolsVersion "18.0.1"

    defaultConfig {
        minSdkVersion 7
        targetSdkVersion 16
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:18.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:18.0.+'
}

menu.xml

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:appcompat="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

    <item
            android:id="@+id/action_settings"
            android:title="@string/action_settings"
            android:orderInCategory="100"
            android:showAsAction="never"/>

    <item
            android:id="@+id/menu_search"
            android:title="@string/menu_search"
            appcompat:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView"
            appcompat:showAsAction="always"/>

</menu>

styles.xml

<style name="Theme.MyCompatTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light"></style>