How to change the autocomplete text color for sear

Question

I have my own theme for ActionBarSherlock based on Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar, here are my styles:

<style name="Theme.MyTheme" parent="Theme.Sherlock.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/Widget.MyTheme.ActionBar</item>
</style>

<style name="Widget.MyTheme.ActionBar" parent="Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="android:background">@drawable/action_bar</item>
    <item name="background">@drawable/action_bar</item>
</style>

Where @drawable/action_bar is an xml:

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
    <item>
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid android:color="@color/color_action_bar_bottom_line" />
        </shape>
    </item>

    <item android:bottom="2dp">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid android:color="@color/color_action_bar_background" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</layer-list>

Everything looks great except one thing: the text in the SearchView (when I use the search mode in ActionBar) is "dark on dark", so I cannot see anything. I tried to set the text colors for SearchView manually:

AutoCompleteTextView searchTextView =
        (AutoCompleteTextView) searchView.findViewById(R.id.abs__search_src_text);
searchTextView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
searchTextView.setHintTextColor(Color.LTGRAY);
searchTextView.setHighlightColor(Color.WHITE);
searchTextView.setLinkTextColor(Color.WHITE);

This helped a lot but I cannot change the color of autocomplete text:

As you see, it's still black. How can I set the white text color for this kind of text?

Answer 1

The issue is that the SearchView is initialized without properly considering the ActionBar style (in this case Dark ActionBar on Light) that is set. And the answer is to use the ActionBar themed Context; retrieved by Activity.getActionBar().getThemedContext(). This is mentioned at the bottom of ABS Migration:

If you are using list navigation pay special attention to the 'List Navigation' example in the demos sample for direction on proper use. You need to use the library-provided layouts for both the item view and dropdown view as well as use the themed context from the action bar.

My code is how it is done in standard Android, you'd have to get the ActionBar however appropriate. If you pass the themed Context to the SearchView then it will use the appropriate style, namely, it won't render itself as if it were on a light background.

Answer 2

Try this code

SearchView searchView = new SearchView(context);
LinearLayout linearLayout1 = (LinearLayout) searchView.getChildAt(0);
LinearLayout linearLayout2 = (LinearLayout) linearLayout1.getChildAt(2);
LinearLayout linearLayout3 = (LinearLayout) linearLayout2.getChildAt(1);
AutoCompleteTextView autoComplete = (AutoCompleteTextView) linearLayout3.getChildAt(0);
autoComplete.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);

or

SearchView searchView = new SearchView(context);
AutoCompleteTextView search_text = (AutoCompleteTextView) searchView.findViewById(searchView.getContext().getResources().getIdentifier("android:id/search_src_text", null, null));
search_text.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);

It's from my own answer here How to set SearchView TextSize?

Answer 3

Here iam useing SearchView like this it's working nice searchtext color also in white color.

this one res/menu and name is applications_menu.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

<item
    android:id="@+id/Accounts"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher">
</item>
<item
    android:id="@+id/menu_search"
    android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
    android:title="menu_search">
</item>
</menu>

this one use in activity when you search like this

new MenuInflater(this).inflate(R.menu.applications_menu, menu);     
    SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
    SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search).getActionView();
    searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));           
    searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);

here is screen

Answer 4

I think your are using a Light Theme with a custom dark action bar theme. You could try to change the theme of the AutoCompleteTextView to a dark one. Try to add this in your theme :

<style name="Widget.MyTheme.ActionBar" parent="Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
    <item name="searchAutoCompleteTextView">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>
    <item name="android:searchAutoCompleteTextView">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>

    <item name="searchAutoCompleteTextViewStyle">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>
    <item name="android:searchAutoCompleteTextViewStyle">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>

    <item name="textAppearanceLargePopupMenu">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>
    <item name="android:textAppearanceLargePopupMenu">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>

    <item name="textAppearanceSmallPopupMenu">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>
    <item name="android:textAppearanceSmallPopupMenu">@style/Widget.Sherlock.SearchAutoCompleteTextView</item>
</style>

Edit : not sure about the added lines but you can try. I spot it in some fixes for the HoloEverywhere library.

Answer 5

May be there are is best way to do this , but used the very simple way, I used library for that

 @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        searchMenuItem = CollapsibleMenuUtils.addSearchMenuItem(menu, false,
                textWatcher);
        return true;
    }

set the boolean value for true/false for setting Light/Dark theme

addSearchMenuItem(Menu menu, boolean isLightTheme, TextWatcher textWatcher)

Adding collapsible search menu item to the menu.

Parameters: menu isLightTheme - true if use light them for ActionBar, else false textWatcher

for changing the text color i changed the librery's layout/ holodark.xml

<AutoCompleteTextView
        android:id="@+id/search_src_text"
        android:layout_width="0dp"
       .
       .
        android:textColor="@android:color/white" />

Answer 6

I solved this by disabling autocomplete feature (it will be disabled if you'll set the edit type to Visible Password), but this solution is not very good and I'm still in search for better one.

private SearchView getSearchView() {
    SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
    SearchView searchView = new SearchView(getSupportActionBar().getThemedContext());
    searchView.setQueryHint("Search for items");
    searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName()));

    AutoCompleteTextView searchTextView =
            (AutoCompleteTextView) searchView.findViewById(R.id.abs__search_src_text);
    if (searchTextView != null) {
        searchTextView.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT
                                    | InputType.TYPE_TEXT_VARIATION_VISIBLE_PASSWORD);
        searchTextView.setTypeface(Typeface.DEFAULT);
    }
    return searchView;
}