CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroidsearchviewandroid-toolbar
Antonis427
Antonis427

Reputation: 1012

Cannot get android.support.v7.widget.SearchView to accept text

After hours of trying to get a support SearchView in my support Toolbar to work correctly (it shows up, shows the hint text but refuses to accept text), I have to turn to you.

I have Googled for hours, read A LOT of answers here and in other sites, checked out a lot of documentation and a specific blog post dealing with the subject but I just can't isolate the issue.

As I have said, I am using the support versions of SearchView and Toolbar and also MenuItemCompat. Also, ActionBarActivity. I made sure that I followed all the steps religiously (this blog post had a lot to say on the subject, even mistakes in the official documentation).

I have set the AndroidManifest.xml file correctly, I have a searchable.xml which, as far as I understand, is referenced correctly (I mean, the hint text shows up normally in the SearchView field), I have a search result activity with an android.intent.action.SEARCH intent filter set in the manifest.

Still nothing. I'm honestly stumped here.

Here's the onCreateOptionsMenu() of the SearchView-hosting activity:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu, menu);
        MenuItem search = menu.findItem(R.id.search);

        searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(search);

        SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager)getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);

        searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager
                .getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
        return true;
    }

And here is searchable.xml in res/xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:hint="@string/search_hint"
    android:label="@string/search_title" >

</searchable>

Finally, here is the menu.xml file in res/menu:

<item
        android:id="@+id/search"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_search_white_18dp"
        android:title="@string/search_title"
        myappname:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView"
        myappname:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"/>

(obviously myappname replaces my real app name here).

Weirdly, voice search works perfectly normal after I add 

android:voiceSearchMode="showVoiceSearchButton|launchRecognizer"

in searchable.xml. It even sends the recognised phrase in the intent to the search results activity. The only problem is that I simply can't input text in the text field - there's not even a cursor blinking there. Attempts to do something like searchView.requestFocus() have no result.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2415

Answers (1)

Antonis427
Antonis427

Reputation: 1012

After wasting 8 hours on this, I came up with a solution. I'm not sure about how much of a hack it is but it works.

I noticed that the EditText in the SearchView was behaving erratically as far as focusing was concerned: it had no cursor and, weirdly enough, when I pulled the notification drawer down, it seemed to change focus. I decided to go with the theory that the problem was the focus of the EditText inside the SearchView, so I went looking for the android.R.id of the EditText.

After searching, I came upon this answer. So I got a reference to the EditText within the SearchView thusly:

EditText searchField = (EditText) 
searchView.findViewById(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_src_text);

I then requested focus for the EditText:

searchField.requestFocus();

... and suddenly the SearchView could accept text, with all the relevant callbacks working!

I only had one problem left: when onPause() was called, my solution stopped working since the EditText lost focus. So I just added:

invalidateOptionsMenu();

...in onResume() and now it works perfectly.

I must say, though: it was a really weird experience since I followed the steps religiously (not in the official Android developer guide, which has a number of mistakes) and still couldn't get the SearchView EditText to focus. I have a suspicion that the nav drawer has the focus upon the Activity creation and maybe that was the source of the problem but I'm not sure yet.

Upvotes: 2

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