Expand and give focus to SearchView automatically

Question

I'm developing an application where the user presses the "Search" icon in the ActionBar and a SearchView is made visible at the top of the screen.

My problem is that the SearchView is not in focus nor expanded so the user has to press the search button on the Searchview to make it expand and bring out the keyboard.

How should this be solved?

Answer 1

To make the SearchView expanded by default, call setIconifiedByDefault(false) on it when you initialise it (e.g. in onCreateOptionsMenu(..) or onPrepareOptionsMenu(..)). I've found in most cases this will give it focus automatically, but if not simply call requestFocus() on it too.

Answer 2

You can also call to expandActionView() method in order to force it:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu( Menu menu )
{
    super.onCreateOptionsMenu( menu );

    MenuItem searchMenuItem = menu.findItem( R.id.mi_search ); // get my MenuItem with placeholder submenu
    searchMenuItem.expandActionView(); // Expand the search menu item in order to show by default the query

    return true;
}

Search item in the Action Bar layout:

<item
        android:id="@+id/mi_search"
        android:icon="@drawable/abs__ic_search_api_holo_light"
        android:title="@string/search"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"
        android:actionViewClass="com.actionbarsherlock.widget.SearchView"
        />

Answer 3

If you want to have it iconifiedByDefault, this worked for me. setFocusable and setIconified are needed.

    SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).getActionView();
    searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(true);
    searchView.setFocusable(true);
    searchView.setIconified(false);
    searchView.requestFocusFromTouch();

Update: If you are Using android.support.v7.widget.SearchView the behaviour us very different. clearFocus is needed if you don't want the keyboard pop-up all the time. For some reason the menu is recreated all the time, when using appcompat.

SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).getActionView();
searchView.setIconified(false);
searchView.clearFocus();

Answer 4

If you're using it in layout, you can call

mSearchView.onActionViewExpanded()

Answer 5

This worked for me :

In the root layout :

xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"

SearchView defined as follows :

 <android.support.v7.widget.SearchView
        android:id="@+id/search_contacts"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:layout_margin="15dp"
        android:background="@drawable/search_view"        
        app:iconifiedByDefault="false"
        app:queryHint="Search name or email"
        >

        <requestFocus />
    </android.support.v7.widget.SearchView>

The difference is with app tag.

app:iconifiedByDefault="false"
app:queryHint="Search name or email"

Answer 6

If you are using inside an activity you need to use

view.onActionViewExpanded();

if you are using inside menu options you need to use

MenuItem.expandActionView();

Note: it works only for SearchView

these two situations are worked for me.

Answer 7

This worked for me:

menu.expandActionView();

Answer 8

You can use the SearchView#setIconified() method on a SearchView handle in your Java code. More here:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SearchView.html#setIconified(boolean)

You can also make use of SearchView#setIconifiedByDefault(). More info here:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SearchView.html#setIconifiedByDefault(boolean)

Answer 9

use this

SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) mActivity.getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
                SearchView searchView = new SearchView(mActivity.actionBar.getThemedContext());
                searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(mActivity.getComponentName()));
                searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);
                searchView.setQueryHint("Search");
                menu.findItem(R.id.action_search).setActionView(searchView);

Answer 10

@Pascalius's answer worked for me. But every time you close the SearchView, and click again, you lost the Focus. So I inserted the code in a setOnMenuItemClickListener like this:

MenuItem item = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);

SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) item.getActionView();

item.setOnMenuItemClickListener(new MenuItem.OnMenuItemClickListener() {
    @Override
    public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem menuItem) {
        searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(true);
        searchView.setFocusable(true);
        searchView.setIconified(false);
        searchView.requestFocusFromTouch();

        return false;
    }
});

Answer 11

MenuItemCompat's SearchView has a property named maxWidth.

final MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);
searchView.setMaxWidth(xxx);

use screen width instead of xxx offcourse

Answer 12

android:iconifiedByDefault="true"

in your xml file

Answer 13

I am using android.widget Searchview and iconified by default.Below code in xml helped me make it expand and autofocus on search view,when clicked:

<SearchView
                android:id="@+id/searchView"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:iconifiedByDefault="true"
                android:focusable="true"
                android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
                android:queryHint="Search"/>

Answer 14

For Appcompat Searchview you can use this method:

MenuItemCompat.expandActionView(mSearchMenuItem);