Adding Search to the Action Bar
Along with the Action Bar, Android 3.0 introduced the SearchView widget, which can be included as a menu item when creating a menu. This is now the recommended UI pattern to provide a consistent user experience.
The following screenshot shows the initial appearance of the Search icon in the Action Bar:
![](https://static.packt-cdn.com/products/9781788991216/graphics/12d607df-18bc-4153-9e1e-f5852e8b49da.png)
The following screenshot shows how the Search option expands when pressed:
![](https://static.packt-cdn.com/products/9781788991216/graphics/6080e433-7428-4b3a-a660-9a08d24ac954.png)
If you want to add Search functionality to your application, this recipe will walk you through the steps to set up your User Interface and properly configure the Search Manager API.
Getting ready
Create a new project in Android Studio and call it SearchView
. Use the default Phone & Tablet options and select Empty Activity
when prompted for the Activity Type.
How to do it...
To set up the Search UI pattern, we need to create the Search menu item and a resource called searchable. We'll create a second activity to receive the search query. Then, we'll hook it all up in the AndroidManifest
file...