Android: AutoCompleteTextView show suggestions when no text entered

Question

I am using AutoCompleteTextView, when the user clicks on it, I want to show suggestions even if it has no text - but setThreshold(0) works exactly

Answer 1

Seven years later, guys, the problem stays the same. Here's a class with a function which forces that stupid pop-up to show itself in any conditions. All you need to do is to set an adapter to your AutoCompleteTextView, add some data into it, and call showDropdownNow() function anytime.

Credits to @David Vávra. It's based on his code.

import android.content.Context
import android.util.AttributeSet
import android.widget.AutoCompleteTextView

class InstantAutoCompleteTextView : AutoCompleteTextView {

    constructor(context: Context) : super(context)

    constructor(context: Context?, attrs: AttributeSet?) : super(context, attrs)

    constructor(context: Context?, attrs: AttributeSet?, defStyleAttr: Int) : super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr)

    override fun enoughToFilter(): Boolean {
        return true
    }

    fun showDropdownNow() {
        if (adapter != null) {
            // Remember a current text
            val savedText = text

            // Set empty text and perform filtering. As the result we restore all items inside of
            // a filter's internal item collection.
            setText(null, true)

            // Set back the saved text and DO NOT perform filtering. As the result of these steps
            // we have a text shown in UI, and what is more important we have items not filtered
            setText(savedText, false)

            // Move cursor to the end of a text
            setSelection(text.length)

            // Now we can show a dropdown with full list of options not filtered by displayed text
            performFiltering(null, 0)
        }
    }
}