android how an EditText work as AutoComplete

Question

I want my EditText should work as AutoComplete, for that I write in XML file

android:inputType="textAutoComplete|textAutoCorrect"

but it's not working.

I am working with API v2.2 and my Activity extends MapActivity, there I put a simple EditText and a button named "Search". so if we type the location name in EditText and press search button means it should go to that location in map. So I want that EditText to work as a AutoComplete. How can I do that?

Answer 1

Just use an AutoCompleteTextView instead of normal EditText.

hello-autocomplete will be helpful.

EDIT: The above link looks like has expired. The new page is here: https://developer.android.com/training/keyboard-input/style#AutoComplete

Answer 2

First convert your EditText->AutoCompleteTextView

Then link your XML file to the AutoCompleteTextView using a ArrayAdapter

Assume that the XML string-array you created is named as list_of_countries then it can be linked to your AutoCompleteTextView as follows:

String[] countries = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.list_of_countries);
ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,countries);
actv.setAdapter(adapter);

Answer 3

I use this code:

1) On AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS"></uses-permission>

2) On xml layout you must use AutoCompleteTextView instead of EditText.

<AutoCompleteTextView
    android:id="@+id/autoCompleteTextView1"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:ems="10"
    android:text="AutoCompleteTextView" />

3) Use this on Activity file

private ArrayAdapter<String> getEmailAddressAdapter(Context context) {
    Account[] accounts = AccountManager.get(context).getAccounts();
    String[] addresses = new String[accounts.length];
    for (int i = 0; i < accounts.length; i++) { 
        addresses[i] = accounts[i].name;
    }
    return new ArrayAdapter<String>(context, android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, addresses);
}

4) On onCreate activity:

AutoCompleteTextView autoCompleteTextView1 = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.autoCompleteTextView1);
autoCompleteTextView1.setAdapter(getEmailAddressAdapter(this));

Answer 4

Default ArrayAdapter filters only by the first characters. In case you want to see also words which contain the searching keyword, you need to use a custom ArrayAdapter and override its getView and getFilter methods. Take a look at a complete solution I provided in another StackOverflow question: https://stackoverflow.com/a/37298258/1808829

Some code fragment:

public class AutoSuggestAdapter extends ArrayAdapter
{
    @Override
    public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
    {
        // handle view here
    }

    @Override
    public Filter getFilter()
    {
       // implement filtering here
    }
}

Answer 5

This code for change settings of MultiAutoCompleteTextView

ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,codeKeyWords);
MultiAutoCompleteTextView autoCompleteTextView1 = (MultiAutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.autoCompleteTextView1);
autoCompleteTextView1.setAdapter(adapter);
autoCompleteTextView1.setThreshold(1);
autoCompleteTextView1.setTokenizer(new this.CommaTokenizer());

And below that code for make spliting words by space char and \n charactes.. (Why we need this code? Because Normal multiAutoComplete.setTokenizer(new MultiAutoCompleteTextView.CommaTokenizer()); like that and it make spliting the words by ',' character, But our code help you to make that spliting by these characters ' ' and '\n' )

/**
         * This simple Tokenizer can be used for lists where the items are
         * separated by a comma and one or more spaces.
         */
    public static class CommaTokenizer implements Tokenizer {
        public int findTokenStart(CharSequence text, int cursor) {
            int i = cursor;

            while (i > 0 && text.charAt(i - 1) != ' ') {
                i--;
            }
            while (i < cursor && text.charAt(i) == '\n') {
                i++;
            }

            return i;
        }

        public int findTokenEnd(CharSequence text, int cursor) {
            int i = cursor;
            int len = text.length();

            while (i < len) {
                if (text.charAt(i) == '\n') {
                    return i;
                } else {
                    i++;
                }
            }

            return len;
        }

        public CharSequence terminateToken(CharSequence text) {
            int i = text.length();

            while (i > 0 && text.charAt(i - 1) == ' ') {
                i--;
            }

            if (i > 0 && text.charAt(i - 1) == ' ') {
                return text;
            } else {
                if (text instanceof Spanned) {
                    SpannableString sp = new SpannableString(text + "\n");
                    TextUtils.copySpansFrom((Spanned) text, 0, text.length(),
                                            Object.class, sp, 0);
                    return sp;
                } else {
                    return text + " ";
                }
            }
        }