AutoComplete TextBox in Android
In this article I am going to
explain how to create an AutoComplete textbox by using
AutoCompleteTextView widget in an
Android application. In this article I am going to create
AutoCompleteTextView widget that provides suggestions for student names.
Start a new project named AutoCompleteDemo.
Create a XML file named list_item.xml and
insert the following code in the xml.
<?xml
version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:padding="10dp"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:textColor="#000">
</TextView>
This file simple define a
TextView that will be used for each
item that appears in the list of suggestions.
Open the res/layout/main.xml and add
an AutoCompleteTextView widget inside the linear layout.
<?xml
version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Student Names"/>
<AutoCompleteTextView
android:id="@+id/autocompletetextview"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"
/>
</LinearLayout>
Open
res/values/strings.xml and the
following resources:
<?xml
version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="hello">Hello World, AutoCompleteActivity!</string>
<string name="app_name">AutoCompleteDemo</string>
<string-array name="studentname_array">
<item>Rohit</item>
<item>Rahul</item>
<item>Amit</item>
<item>Arun</item>
<item>Rati</item>
<item>Aman</item>
<item>Farhan</item>
<item>Farhad</item>
<item>Ritika</item>
</string-array>
</resources>
Open the Activity (java) file and apply the following code:
import
android.app.Activity;
import
android.os.Bundle;
import
android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import
android.widget.AutoCompleteTextView;
public
class
AutoCompleteActivity
extends Activity {
@Override
public
void onCreate(Bundle
savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
AutoCompleteTextView txtview =(AutoCompleteTextView)
findViewById(R.id.autocompletetextview);
String [] names=getResources().getStringArray(R.array.studentname_array);
ArrayAdapter<String> adapter=new
ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
R.layout.list_item,names);
txtview.setAdapter(adapter);
}
}
After the content view is set to
the main.xml layout, the AutoCompleteTextView() widget is captured from the
layout with findViewById(int). Then
we get all the student names in an array from the resource file. A new array
adapter is then initialized to bind the list_item.xml layout to each list in the names string array. Then
setAdpater() is called to associate
the ArrayAdapter with the
AutoCompleteTextView widget so that the string array will populate the list
of suggestions.
Run the application.
The output look something like below:
When the users press some
keyword, it will display the related student names automatically from the
resource file.