Android search list while typing

Question

How can I build a search bar where while I'm typing the results are shown in the ListView in which I'm searching?

For example, I have a list view with 20 strings. I press the search key and appears the bar. I want when I type 3 words or more the search starts running showing the results in the list view (as a filter: only shows the strings in the list that matching what I type)

Answer 1

I believe this is what you are looking for:

http://www.java2s.com/Code/Android/2D-Graphics/ShowsalistthatcanbefilteredinplacewithaSearchViewinnoniconifiedmode.htm

Have your Activity implement SearchView.OnQueryTextListener

and add the following methods:

public boolean onQueryTextChange(String newText) {     if (TextUtils.isEmpty(newText)) {         mListView.clearTextFilter();     } else {         mListView.setFilterText(newText.toString());     }     return true; }  public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String query) {     return false; } 

Answer 2

You can't do this with the search bar. But the listview has a possibility to filter on key pressed, like it is done in the contacts. The user simply starts typing and the list gets filtered then. Filtering is not really like searching. If you list contains the word foo somewhere and you type oo foo will be filtered out, but if you type fo it will stay even if the list item is call bar foo.

You simply have to enable it:

ListView lv = getListView(); lv.setTextFilterEnabled(true); 

I don't know how this is done if you don't have a hardware keyboard. I'm using the droid and starting to type starts the list to filter and to show only matching results.