How to make search menu item to a full view in the action bar using abs

Question

I have five action menu items in the action bar, which I\'m using action bar sherlock library as follows :

In onCreateOptionsMenu(), i used the followin

Answer 1

This question is a bit old but I'll try to answer it anyway. I hope someone will find it useful.

Here is what I have done:

Create a custom SearchView class that extends SearchView. It defines 2 events: one fired when the search view expands and the other when it collapses.

public class EnglishVerbSearchView extends SearchView {

OnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener mSearchViewCollapsedEventListener;
OnSearchViewExpandedEventListener mOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener;

public EnglishVerbSearchView(Context context) {
    super(context);
}

@Override
public void onActionViewCollapsed() {
    if (mSearchViewCollapsedEventListener != null)
        mSearchViewCollapsedEventListener.onSearchViewCollapsed();
    super.onActionViewCollapsed();
}

@Override
public void onActionViewExpanded() {
    if (mOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener != null)
        mOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener.onSearchViewExpanded();
    super.onActionViewExpanded();
}

public interface OnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener {
    public void onSearchViewCollapsed();
}

public interface OnSearchViewExpandedEventListener {
    public void onSearchViewExpanded();
}

public void setOnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener(OnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener eventListener) {
    mSearchViewCollapsedEventListener = eventListener;
}

public void setOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener(OnSearchViewExpandedEventListener eventListener) {
    mOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener = eventListener;
}

}

In my activity, I did the following: - Created a private field to store the reference to the menu. - Defined the events for collapsing and expanding the search view where I hide and show other actions by using the reference to the menu.

public class DictionaryActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

    private Menu mMenu;

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.dictionary, menu);

    MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
    EnglishVerbSearchView searchView = (EnglishVerbSearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);        

    searchView.setOnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener(listenerCollapse);
    searchView.setOnSearchViewExpandedEventListener(listenerExpand);

    mMenu = menu;

    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

final private OnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener listenerCollapse = new OnSearchViewCollapsedEventListener() {

    @Override
    public void onSearchViewCollapsed() {
        // show other actions
        MenuItem favouriteItem = mMenu.findItem(R.id.action_favourite);
        MenuItem playItem = mMenu.findItem(R.id.action_play);
        favouriteItem.setVisible(true);
        playItem.setVisible(true);

        // I'm doing my actual search here          
    }
};

final private OnSearchViewExpandedEventListener listenerExpand = new OnSearchViewExpandedEventListener() {

    @Override
    public void onSearchViewExpanded() {
        // hide other actions
        MenuItem favouriteItem = mMenu.findItem(R.id.action_favourite);
        MenuItem playItem = mMenu.findItem(R.id.action_play);
        favouriteItem.setVisible(false);
        playItem.setVisible(false);
    }
};

}

In the menu.xml file, I used the custom search view:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >
<item android:id="@+id/action_search"
      android:title="@string/action_search"
      android:icon="@drawable/action_search"
      yourapp:showAsAction="always|collapseActionView"
      yourapp:actionViewClass="com.xxx.EnglishVerbSearchView" />
</menu>

I hope it's all that's needed as it's just an extract from my full code of the activity. Let me know if there's anything missing.

---

As per comment from arne.jans:

It seems to be enough to do MenuItem.setShowAsAction(MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_IF_ROOM); to make room for the SearchView. The advantage would be: the other menu-items go into the overflow menu and are still accessible, even with the opened SearchView.