I'm trying to add a Search-ActionView to my application (as explained here http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/search/search-dialog.html#UsingSearchWidget). Unfortunately I keep getting a NullPointerException and I'm having a hard time detecting what's actually going wrong.
I created a searchable config and a searchable activity as shown on the android page. My menu .xml file looks like this:
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
...
<item
android:id="@+id/menu_item_search"
android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
android:icon="@drawable/icon_search"
android:showAsAction="always"
android:title="@string/action_bar_button_search">
</item>
</menu>
This is the method where the Exception is thrown:
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu( Menu menu )
{
MenuInflater menuInflater = getMenuInflater();
menuInflater.inflate( R.menu.action_bar, menu );
SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_item_search).getActionView();
// NullPointerException thrown here; searchView is null.
searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);
return super.onCreateOptionsMenu( menu );
}
Complete stack trace:
FATAL EXCEPTION: main
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.example.activities.Test.onCreateOptionsMenu(Test.java:41)
at android.app.Activity.onCreatePanelMenu(Activity.java:2444)
at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.preparePanel(PhoneWindow.java:408)
at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.invalidatePanelMenu(PhoneWindow.java:759)
at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$1.run(PhoneWindow.java:2997)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:605)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4507)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:790)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:557)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
use this way as in link
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.action_bar, menu);
MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_item_search);
SearchView searchView = (SearchView) searchItem.getActionView();
SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
if(null!=searchManager ) {
searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));
}
searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);
return true;
}
Since this question is looked up quite often and I stumbled across the very same problem again and again here is a little follow up that keeps track of all necessary steps to create a SearchWidget.
There is one tricky part about the SearchWidget though: If you use hardcoded Strings in the searchable.xml instead of resources the app will crash with a confusing error message. This took me way too many hours of my life...
Create an Activity to handle the search results
public class Search extends Activity {}
Add a file "searchable.xml" to your res/xml directory (use resources for hint & label!)
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:hint="@string/search_hint"
android:includeInGlobalSearch="false"
android:label="@string/search_label"
android:searchSettingsDescription="@string/search_global_description" />
Create the proper menu item "main.xml" in you res/menu directory
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
<item
android:id="@+id/options_menu_main_search"
android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
android:icon="@drawable/icon_magnifier"
android:showAsAction="always"
android:title="Search"/>
</menu>
Update your Manifest.xml: Add the search activity and specify which activities may receive search intents. Adding <meta-data android:name="android.app.default_searchable" android:value=".app.Search" />
to an activity
node makes it searchable. Adding it to the application
node makes all activities searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<application>
<meta-data
android:name="android.app.default_searchable"
android:value=".app.Search" />
<activity android:name=".activities.Search" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.app.searchable"
android:resource="@xml/searchable" />
</activity>
</application>
Add the SearchManager to your ActionView in every activity that should provide the SearchWidget
public class Activity extends android.app.Activity
{
@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu( Menu menu )
{
getMenuInflater().inflate( R.menu.main, menu );
// Add SearchWidget.
SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService( Context.SEARCH_SERVICE );
SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem( R.id.options_menu_main_search ).getActionView();
searchView.setSearchableInfo( searchManager.getSearchableInfo( getComponentName() ) );
return super.onCreateOptionsMenu( menu );
}
}
If you are using targeting Android 2.x and using android.support.v7.widget.SearchView
check that your menu.xml looks like this (note the yourapp namespace)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item
android:id="@+id/search"
android:title="@string/search"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_search"
yourapp:showAsAction="always"
yourapp:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView" />
</menu>
And in the Activity where you inflate the menu use:
android.support.v7.widget.SearchView searchView = (android.support.v7.widget.SearchView)
MenuItemCompat.getActionView(menu.findItem(R.id.search));
SearchView getActionView returning null
As in the link, open your menu xml file and change
android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
into
app:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
this worked for me
I also got the same problem. In my case, change android:actionViewClass
to app:actionViewClass
solved the problem
(with xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
in <menu>
tag).
This problem is triggered by a missing intent filter:
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
</intent-filter>
First of all, create an XML file containing the SearchWidget to your layout folder
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SearchView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="@+id/edit_query"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:inputType="textFilter"
>
</SearchView>
Then, in your activity, retrieve the action bar
android.support.v7.app.ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
Then add a reference to your search view
actionBar.setCustomView(R.layout.custom_action_bar);
search = (EditText) actionBar.getCustomView().findViewById(
R.id.edit_query);
Then, set the display option for the action bar
actionBar.setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM | ActionBar.DISPLAY_HOME_AS_UP);
That's it.
Btw, you could also use my search widget which takes a list of strings as an array list and displays them, according to the query entered. Once the user selects a particular result, the selected result is returned which can retrieved on the onActivityResult of the parent activity.