When you're ready to add search functionality to your app, Android helps you implement the user interface with either a search dialog that appears at the top of the activity window or a search widget that you can insert in your layout. Both the search dialog and the widget can deliver the user's search query to a specific activity in your app. This way, the user can initiate a search from any activity where the search dialog or widget is available, and the system starts the appropriate activity to perform the search and present results.
Other features available for the search dialog and widget include:
- Voice search
- Search suggestions based on recent queries
- Search suggestions that match actual results in your app data
This document shows how to set up your app to provide a search interface that's assisted by the Android system to deliver search queries, using either the search dialog or the search widget.
Related resources:
The basics
Before you begin, decide whether you want to implement your search interface using the search dialog or the search widget. They provide the same search features, but in slightly different ways:
- The search dialog is a UI component that's controlled by
the Android system. When activated by the user, the search dialog appears at
the top of the activity.
The Android system controls all events in the search dialog. When the user submits a query, the system delivers the query to the activity that you specify to handle searches. The dialog can also provide search suggestions while the user types.
- The search widget is an instance of
SearchView
that you can place anywhere in your layout. By default, the search widget behaves like a standardEditText
widget and doesn't do anything, but you can configure it so that the Android system handles all input events, delivers queries to the appropriate activity, and provides search suggestions—just like the search dialog.
When the user executes a search from the search dialog or a search widget,
the system creates an
Intent
and
stores the user query in it. The system then starts the activity that you
declare to handle searches—the "searchable activity"—and delivers it
the intent. To set up your app for this kind of assisted search, you need the
following:
- A search configuration
- An XML file that configures some settings for the search dialog or widget. It includes settings for features such as voice search, search suggestion, and hint text for the search box.
- A searchable activity
- The
Activity
that receives the search query, searches your data, and displays the search results.- A search interface, provided by either of the following:
- The search dialog
- By default, the search dialog is hidden. It appears at the top of the screen when you call
onSearchRequested()
when the user taps your Search button.- A
SearchView
widget- Using the search widget lets you put the search box anywhere in your activity, including as an action view in the app bar.
- A
The rest of this document shows you how to create the search configuration and searchable activity and how to implement a search interface with either the search dialog or search widget.
Create a searchable configuration
The first thing you need is an XML file called a
search configuration.
It configures certain UI aspects of the search dialog or widget and defines how
features such as suggestions and voice search behave. This file is traditionally
named searchable.xml
and must be saved in the res/xml/
project directory.
The search configuration file must include the
<searchable>
element as its root node and specify one or more attributes, as shown in the
following example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:label="@string/app_label" android:hint="@string/search_hint" > </searchable>
The android:label
attribute is the only required attribute. It
points to a string resource, which must be the app name. This label isn't
visible to the user until you enable search suggestions for Quick Search Box, at
which point the label is visible in the list of Searchable items in the system
settings.
Although it's not required, we recommend that you always include the
android:hint
attribute, which provides a hint string in the search
box before users enter a query. The hint is important because it provides
important clues to users about what they can search.
The <searchable>
element accepts several other attributes.
However, you don't need most attributes until you add features such as
search suggestions and
voice search. For detailed information about the
search configuration file, see the
Search configuration
reference document.
Create a searchable activity
A searchable activity is the Activity
in your app that performs
searches based on a query string and presents the search results.
When the user executes a search in the search dialog or widget, the system
starts your searchable activity and delivers it the search query in an
Intent
with the
ACTION_SEARCH
action. Your searchable activity retrieves the query from the intent's
QUERY
extra, then searches your data and presents the results.
Because you can include the search dialog or widget in any other activity in your app, the system must know which activity is your searchable activity so that it can properly deliver the search query. So, first declare your searchable activity in the Android manifest file.
Declare a searchable activity
If you don't have one already, create an Activity
that performs
searches and presents results. You don't need to implement the search
functionality yet—just create an activity that you can declare in the
manifest. Inside the manifest's
<activity>
element, do the following:
- Declare the activity to accept the
ACTION_SEARCH
intent in an<intent-filter>
element. - Specify the search configuration to use in a
<meta-data>
element.
This is shown in the following example:
<application ... > <activity android:name=".SearchableActivity" > <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" /> </intent-filter> <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable" android:resource="@xml/searchable"/> </activity> ... </application>
The <meta-data>
element must include the
android:name
attribute with a value of
"android.app.searchable"
and the android:resource
attribute with a reference to the searchable configuration file. In the
preceding example, it refers to the res/xml/searchable.xml
file.
Perform a search
After you declare your searchable activity in the manifest, follow this procedure to perform a search in your searchable activity:
Receive the query
When a user executes a search from the search dialog or widget, the system
starts your searchable activity and sends it an ACTION_SEARCH
intent. This intent carries the search query in the QUERY
string
extra. Check for this intent when the activity starts and extract the string.
For example, here's how you can get the search query when your searchable
activity starts:
Kotlin
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContentView(R.layout.search) // Verify the action and get the query. if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH == intent.action) { intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY)?.also { query -> doMySearch(query) } } }
Java
@Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.search); // Get the intent, verify the action, and get the query. Intent intent = getIntent(); if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) { String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY); doMySearch(query); } }
The QUERY
string is always included with the
ACTION_SEARCH
intent. In the preceding example, the query is
retrieved and passed to a local doMySearch()
method where the
actual search operation is done.
Search your data
The process of storing and searching your data is unique to your app. You can store and search your data in many ways, and this document doesn't show you how. Consider how you store and search your data in terms of your needs and your data format. The following are tips you might be able to apply:
- If your data is stored in a SQLite database on the device, performing a
full-text search—using FTS3, rather than a
LIKE
query—can provide a more robust search across text data and can produce results significantly faster. See sqlite.org for information about FTS3 and theSQLiteDatabase
class for information about SQLite on Android. - If your data is stored online, then the perceived search performance might
be inhibited by the user's data connection. You might want to display a
progress indicator until your search returns. See
android.net
for a reference of network APIs andProgressBar
for information about how to display a progress indicator.
Present the results
Regardless of where your data lives and how you search it, we recommend that
you return search results to your searchable activity with an
Adapter
. This
way, you can present all the search results in a
RecyclerView
.
If your data comes from a SQLite database query, you can apply your results to a
RecyclerView
using a
CursorAdapter
.
If your data comes in a different format, then you can create an extension of
BaseAdapter
.
An Adapter
binds each item from a set of data into a
View
object. When
the Adapter
is applied to a RecyclerView
, each piece
of data is inserted as an individual view into the list. Adapter
is
just an interface, so implementations such as
CursorAdapter
—for binding data from a
Cursor
—are
needed. If none of the existing implementations work for your data, then you can
implement your own from BaseAdapter
.
Use the search dialog
The search dialog provides a floating search box at the top of the screen, with the app icon on the left. The search dialog can provide search suggestions as the user types. When the user executes a search, the system sends the search query to a searchable activity that performs the search.
By default, the search dialog is always hidden until the user activates it.
Your app can activate the search dialog by calling
onSearchRequested()
. However, this method doesn't work until you
enable the search dialog for the activity.
To enable the search dialog to perform searches, indicate to the system which
searchable activity must receive search queries from the search dialog. For
example, in the preceding section about
creating a searchable activity, a searchable
activity named SearchableActivity
is created. If you want a
separate activity, such as one named OtherActivity
, to show the
search dialog and deliver searches to SearchableActivity
, declare
in the manifest that SearchableActivity
is the searchable activity
to use for the search dialog in OtherActivity
.
To declare the searchable activity for an activity's search dialog, add a
<meta-data>
element inside the respective activity's
<activity>
element. The <meta-data>
element must include the android:value
attribute that specifies the
searchable activity's class name and the android:name
attribute
with a value of "android.app.default_searchable"
.
For example, here is the declaration for both a searchable activity,
SearchableActivity
, and another activity,
OtherActivity
, which uses SearchableActivity
to
perform searches executed from its search dialog:
<application ... > <!-- This is the searchable activity; it performs searches. --> <activity android:name=".SearchableActivity" > <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" /> </intent-filter> <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable" android:resource="@xml/searchable"/> </activity> <!-- This activity enables the search dialog to initiate searches in the SearchableActivity. --> <activity android:name=".OtherActivity" ... > <!-- Enable the search dialog to send searches to SearchableActivity. --> <meta-data android:name="android.app.default_searchable" android:value=".SearchableActivity" /> </activity> ... </application>
Because OtherActivity
now includes a
<meta-data>
element to declare which searchable activity to
use for searches, the activity enables the search dialog. Although the user is
in this activity, the onSearchRequested()
method activates the
search dialog. When the user executes the search, the system starts
SearchableActivity
and delivers it the ACTION_SEARCH
intent.
If you want every activity in your app to provide the search dialog, insert
the preceding <meta-data>
element as a child of the
<application>
element, instead of each <activity>
. This way, every activity
inherits the value, provides the search dialog, and delivers searches to the
same searchable activity. If you have multiple searchable activities, you can
override the default searchable activity by placing a different
<meta-data>
declaration inside individual activities.
With the search dialog now enabled for your activities, your app is ready to perform searches.
Invoke the search dialog
Although some devices provide a dedicated search button, the behavior of the
button might vary between devices, and many devices don't provide a search
button at all. So when using the search dialog, you must provide a search button
in your UI that activates the search dialog by calling
onSearchRequested()
.
For example, add a search button in your
options menu or UI layout
that calls onSearchRequested()
.
You can also enable "type-to-search" functionality, which activates the
search dialog when the user starts typing on the keyboard. The keystrokes are
inserted into the search dialog. You can enable type-to-search in your activity
by calling
setDefaultKeyMode
—or
DEFAULT_KEYS_SEARCH_LOCAL
—during
your activity's
onCreate()
method.
The impact of the search dialog on your activity lifecycle
The search dialog is a
Dialog
that floats
at the top of the screen. It doesn't cause any change in the activity stack, so
when the search dialog appears, no lifecycle methods—such as
onPause()
—are
called. Your activity loses input focus, because input focus is given to the
search dialog.
If you want to be notified when the search dialog is activated, override the
onSearchRequested()
method. When the system calls this method, it
is an indication that your activity loses input focus to the search dialog, so
you can do any work appropriate for the event, such as pausing a game. Unless
you are passing search context
data—discussed in another section of this document—end the
method by calling the superclass implementation:
Kotlin
override fun onSearchRequested(): Boolean { pauseSomeStuff() return super.onSearchRequested() }
Java
@Override public boolean onSearchRequested() { pauseSomeStuff(); return super.onSearchRequested(); }
If the user cancels search by tapping the Back button, the search dialog
closes and the activity regains input focus. You can register to be notified
when the search dialog is closed with
setOnDismissListener()
,
setOnCancelListener()
,
or both. You only need to register the
OnDismissListener
,
because it is called every time the search dialog closes. The
OnCancelListener
only pertains to events in which the user explicitly exits the search dialog, so
it's not called when a search is executed. When the search is executed, the
search dialog automatically disappears.
If the current activity isn't the searchable activity, then the normal
activity lifecycle events are triggered when the user executes a
search—the current activity receives onPause()
, as described
in Introduction to
activities. However, if the current activity is the searchable activity,
then one of two things happens:
- By default, the searchable activity receives the
ACTION_SEARCH
intent with a call toonCreate()
, and a new instance of the activity is brought to the top of the activity stack. There are now two instances of your searchable activity in the activity stack, so tapping the Back button takes you back to the previous instance of the searchable activity, rather than exiting the searchable activity. - If you set
android:launchMode
to"singleTop"
, then the searchable activity receives theACTION_SEARCH
intent with a call toonNewIntent(Intent)
, passing the newACTION_SEARCH
intent. For example, here's how you might handle this case, in which the searchable activity's launch mode is"singleTop"
:Kotlin
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContentView(R.layout.search) handleIntent(intent) } override fun onNewIntent(intent: Intent) { super.onNewIntent(intent) setIntent(intent) handleIntent(intent) } private fun handleIntent(intent: Intent) { if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH == intent.action) { intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY)?.also { query -> doMySearch(query) } } }
Java
@Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.search); handleIntent(getIntent()); } @Override protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) { super.onNewIntent(intent); setIntent(intent); handleIntent(intent); } private void handleIntent(Intent intent) { if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) { String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY); doMySearch(query); } }
Compared to the example code in the section about performing a search, all the code to handle the search intent is now in the
handleIntent()
method, so that bothonCreate()
andonNewIntent()
can execute it.When the system calls
onNewIntent(Intent)
, the activity isn't restarted, so thegetIntent()
method returns the same intent that is received withonCreate()
. This is why you must callsetIntent(Intent)
insideonNewIntent(Intent)
: so that the intent saved by the activity is updated in case you callgetIntent()
in the future.
The second scenario, using "singleTop"
launch mode, is usually
preferable, because after a search is done, the user might perform additional
searches, and you don't want your app to create multiple instances of the
searchable activity. We recommend that you set your searchable activity to
"singleTop"
launch mode in the app manifest, as shown in the
following example:
<activity android:name=".SearchableActivity" android:launchMode="singleTop" > <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" /> </intent-filter> <meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable" android:resource="@xml/searchable"/> </activity>
Pass search context data
In some cases, you can make necessary refinements to the search query inside
the searchable activity for every search made. However, if you want to refine
your search criteria based on the activity from which the user is performing a
search, you can provide additional data in the intent that the system sends to
your searchable activity. You can pass the additional data in the
APP_DATA
Bundle
, which is
included in the ACTION_SEARCH
intent.
To pass this kind of data to your searchable activity, override the
onSearchRequested()
method for the activity from which the user can
perform a search, create a Bundle
with the additional data, and
call
startSearch()
to activate the search dialog. For example:
Kotlin
override fun onSearchRequested(): Boolean { val appData = Bundle().apply { putBoolean(JARGON, true) } startSearch(null, false, appData, false) return true }
Java
@Override public boolean onSearchRequested() { Bundle appData = new Bundle(); appData.putBoolean(SearchableActivity.JARGON, true); startSearch(null, false, appData, false); return true; }
Returning true indicates that you successfully handle this callback event and
call startSearch()
to activate the search dialog. After the user
submits a query, it is delivered to your searchable activity along with the data
you add. You can extract the extra data from the APP_DATA
Bundle
to refine the search, as shown in the following example:
Kotlin
val jargon: Boolean = intent.getBundleExtra(SearchManager.APP_DATA)?.getBoolean(JARGON) ?: false
Java
Bundle appData = getIntent().getBundleExtra(SearchManager.APP_DATA); if (appData != null) { boolean jargon = appData.getBoolean(SearchableActivity.JARGON); }
Use the search widget
The search widget provides the same functionality as the search dialog. It starts the appropriate activity when the user executes a search, and it can provide search suggestions and perform voice search. If it's not an option for you to put the search widget in the app bar, you can instead put the search widget somewhere in your activity layout.
Configure the search widget
After you create a
search configuration and a
searchable activity, enable assisted search
for each SearchView
by calling
setSearchableInfo()
and passing it the SearchableInfo
object that represents your
searchable configuration.
You can get a reference to the SearchableInfo
by calling
getSearchableInfo()
on
SearchManager
.
For example, if you're using a SearchView
as an action view in
the app bar, enable the widget during the
onCreateOptionsMenu()
callback, as shown in the following example:
Kotlin
override fun onCreateOptionsMenu(menu: Menu): Boolean { // Inflate the options menu from XML. val inflater = menuInflater inflater.inflate(R.menu.options_menu, menu) // Get the SearchView and set the searchable configuration. val searchManager = getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE) as SearchManager (menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search).actionView as SearchView).apply { // Assumes current activity is the searchable activity. setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(componentName)) setIconifiedByDefault(false) // Don't iconify the widget. Expand it by default. } return true }
Java
@Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { // Inflate the options menu from XML. MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater(); inflater.inflate(R.menu.options_menu, menu); // Get the SearchView and set the searchable configuration. SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE); SearchView searchView = (SearchView) menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search).getActionView(); // Assumes current activity is the searchable activity. searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(getComponentName())); searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false); // Don't iconify the widget. Expand it by default. return true; }
The search widget is now configured, and the system delivers search queries to your searchable activity. You can also enable search suggestions for the search widget.
For more information about action views in the app bar, see Use action views and action providers.
Other search widget features
The SearchView
widget provides a few additional features you
might want:
- A submit button
- By default, there's no button to submit a search query, so the user has to
press the Return key on the keyboard to initiate a search. You
can add a "submit" button by calling
setSubmitButtonEnabled(true)
. - Query refinement for search suggestions
- When you enable search suggestions, you usually expect users to select a
suggestion, but they might also want to refine the suggested search query.
You can add a button alongside each suggestion that inserts the suggestion
in the search box for refinement by the user by calling
setQueryRefinementEnabled(true)
. - The ability to toggle search box visibility
- By default, the search widget is "iconified," meaning that it is
represented only by a search icon—a magnifying glass. It expands to
show the search box when the user taps the icon. As shown in the preceding
example, you can show the search box by default by calling
setIconifiedByDefault(false)
. You can also toggle the search widget appearance by callingsetIconified()
.
There are several other APIs in the SearchView
class that let
you customize the search widget. However, most of them are used only when you
handle all user input yourself, instead of using the Android system to deliver
search queries and display search suggestions.
Use both the widget and the dialog
If you insert the search widget in the app bar as an
action view and enable
it to appear in the app bar if there is room—by setting
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
—then the search widget might
not appear as an action view. Instead, a menu item might appear in the overflow
menu. For example, when your app runs on a smaller screen, there might not be
enough room in the app bar to display the search widget along with other action
items or navigation elements, so the menu item instead appears in the overflow
menu. When placed in the overflow menu, the item works like an ordinary menu
item and doesn't display the action view—that is, the search widget.
To handle this situation, the menu item to which you attach the search widget
must activate the search dialog when the user selects it from the overflow menu.
To make this happen, implement
onOptionsItemSelected()
to handle the "Search" menu item and open the search dialog by calling
onSearchRequested()
.
For more information about how items in the app bar work and how to handle this situation, see Add the app bar.
Add voice search
You can add voice search functionality to your search dialog or widget by
adding the android:voiceSearchMode
attribute to your searchable
configuration. This adds a voice search button that launches a voice prompt.
When the user finishes speaking, the transcribed search query is sent to your
searchable activity.
This is shown in the following example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:label="@string/search_label" android:hint="@string/search_hint" android:voiceSearchMode="showVoiceSearchButton|launchRecognizer" > </searchable>
The value showVoiceSearchButton
is required to enable voice
search. The second value, launchRecognizer
, specifies that the
voice search button must launch a recognizer that returns the
transcribed text to the searchable activity.
You can provide additional attributes to specify the voice search behavior, such as the expected language and the maximum number of results to return. See the Search configuration reference for more information about the available attributes.
Add search suggestions
Both the search dialog and the search widget can provide search suggestions as the user types, with assistance from the Android system. The system manages the list of suggestions and handles the event when the user selects a suggestion.
You can provide two kinds of search suggestions:
- Recent query search suggestions
- These suggestions are words that the user previously used as search queries in your app. See Add custom search suggestions for more information.
- Custom search suggestions
- These are search suggestions that you provide from your own data source to help users immediately select the correct spelling or item they are searching for. See Add custom search suggestions for more information.