Two searchable.xml activities in one AndroidManifest.xml

Question

I have an Android app which has a few different activities for browsing articles and images downloaded from RSS.

I'd like to be able to offer to hook up the search button to the Search dialog, using the a searchable.xml file. I've managed to do this with one search, using:

<activity android:name=".search.SearchResultsActivity"
    android:label="@string/search_results_activity_title" >
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
    </intent-filter>
    <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable"
        android:resource="@xml/searchable_articles"/>
</activity>

and in the <application />

<meta-data android:name="android.app.default_searchable"
    android:value=".search.SearchResultsActivity" />

I can now launch the Search dialog from any activity, and it launches the SearchResultsActivity.

I would now like to be able to search for images when the user is an ImageListActivity, using a searchable_images.xml, and use the default everywhere else.

I have a SearchResultsImageActivity which includes the following meta-data element, and used the same element in the ImageListActivity.

<meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable"
    android:resource="@xml/searchable_images"/>

On pressing the search button in the ImageListActivity, I get the default search from searchable_articles.xml.

If I change the default_searchable to SearchResultsImageActivity, the image search is always launched, and the article search is never launched.

If I remove the default_searchable meta-data element altogether, and add searchable meta-data only selected activities, no search is launched.

I'm fairly sure this should be possible, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

In your Manifest file update the ImageListActivity activity tag

<activity
    android:name=".ImageListActivity"
    ...

    <meta-data
        android:name="android.app.default_searchable"
        android:value=".SearchResultsImageActivity" />
</activity>

So when you will trigger native search in ImageListActivity it will invoke the SearchResultsImageActivity and default one for others.

Assuming SearchResultsImageActivity is searchable.