AutoCompleteTextView force to show all items

Question

There is a moment in my app, that I need to force to show all items in the suggestion list, no matter what the user has typed. How can I do that?

I tried to do something with filtering, but for me as a beginner filtering is just way too complicated, I tried searching beginners tutorial for filtering without any luck. Maybe, there is a simpler way to force to show all the suggestion items?

EDIT: Basically what was my idea, is that, when user types something whats not in the list, it shows all the available options he can have.

I've found the best way of checking weather the ACTV is beign shown or not, but onTextChangeEvent I compare the user typed text with my list, and then if no elements have been found show full list.

public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count)
         {                
           final EditText editText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.vardsUserInput);
            String strValue = editText.getText().toString().toUpperCase();
            String temp;
            int Cc=0; //my count variable
            for(int i=0; i<vardi.length; i++)
            {
                temp = vardi[i].toUpperCase();
                if(temp.startsWith(strValue.toUpperCase()))
                {
                    Log.d("testing",vardi[i]);
                    Cc++;                                                   
                }
            }               
        if(Cc == 0)
        {
        //Show all the available options
    textView.showDropDown();                    
         }                  
}

Answer 1

You don't define the "moment" when you want to display all the results, so I hope this fits. But try something like this:

AutoCompleteTextView autoComplete;
String savedText;

public void showAll() {
    savedText = autoComplete.getText().toString();
    autoComplete.setText("");
    autoComplete.showDropDown();
}

public void restore() {
    autoComplete.setText(savedText);
}