Android : Minimize space in SearchView

Question

I'm try to understand from where there is space between the back arrow and the searchview component. I'm using the separate activity for searching with tooltip.

I tried to add padding 0 to the search view but without success.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="@android:color/white"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
        android:id="@+id/app_bar_layout"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

        <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
            android:id="@+id/toolbar"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
            android:background="@color/search_toolbar_color"
            app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay"
            android:padding="0dp"
            app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar" />

    </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">


        <android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
            android:id="@+id/search_results"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:layout_marginTop="3dp"
            android:visibility="gone" />

    </RelativeLayout>
</LinearLayout>

I created custom search view to meet my requirements, open keyboard while entering search activity, remove the search icon and change the color scheme

  @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu)
    {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.search_menu, menu);
        MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);

        SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) this.getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE);
        if (searchItem != null)
        {
            _searchView = (SearchView) searchItem.getActionView();
        }

        if (_searchView != null)
        {
            _searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager.getSearchableInfo(this.getComponentName()));
            _searchView.setQueryHint(getString(R.string.action_search));
            _searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false);
            final SearchView finalSearchView = _searchView;
            _searchView.setOnQueryTextFocusChangeListener(new View.OnFocusChangeListener()
            {
                @Override
                public void onFocusChange(View view, boolean hasFocus)
                {
                    if (hasFocus)
                    {
                        //                      showInputMethod(view);
                        finalSearchView.onActionViewExpanded();
                    }
                }
            });


            //remove the icon in searchView
            ImageView searchViewIcon = (ImageView) _searchView.findViewById(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_mag_icon);
            ViewGroup linearLayoutSearchView = (ViewGroup) searchViewIcon.getParent();
            linearLayoutSearchView.removeView(searchViewIcon);

            _searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(this);
            _searchView.requestFocus();

        }
        return true;
    }

Update:

After inspecting the toolbar layout by using view hierarchy I come to realized there is some kind of appcompat textview between the back arrow image to the search view. Unfortunately I still can't manage to know how to remove it from there.

GuilhermeFGL · Answer 1 · 2017-08-08T16:51:04.920

You can set those attributes in Toolbar to minimize the extra espace (can set negatives values for margin):

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    xmlns:app="schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
    android:background="@color/search_toolbar_color"
    app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay"
    app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar"
    android:contentInsetLeft="0dp"
    android:contentInsetStart="0dp"
    app:contentInsetLeft="0dp"
    app:contentInsetStart="0dp"
    android:contentInsetRight="0dp"
    android:contentInsetEnd="0dp"
    app:contentInsetRight="0dp"
    app:contentInsetEnd="0dp" />

Original answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/32320632/8405762

Alternatively you can use the SearchBar component with negative margin:

<android.support.v7.widget.SearchView
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="match_parent"
  android:paddingLeft="-16dp"
  android:paddingStart="-16dp"
  app:iconifiedByDefault="false"
  app:searchIcon="@null"
  app:queryHint="Search"
  app:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark" />

SearchBar documentation

Unfortenetly it didn't work, there is some kind of text view that is taking some space in the tooltip. You can see my update in my first post — Anton Makov, Aug 08 '17 at 19:37
Try replace your `Toolbar` with `SearchView`, them use `paddingLeft` with negative value to push the `TextView` to the left — GuilhermeFGL, Aug 08 '17 at 19:41

score -1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 15 '17 at 15:34

I found a solution that worked for me, I added this line

_searchView.setMaxWidth(Integer.MAX_VALUE);

in onCreateOptionsMenu after you inflate the menu layout.

you can read more here [link][1]

Also I removed the title from the actionbar by using

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);

(*) There is still a space between the arrow and the searchview but it much more smaller and I can live with that.

(**) GuilhermeFGL, unfortunately the solutions you provided didn't worked for me, maybe it's because I'm running nougat. But thx for your help.

Android : Minimize space in SearchView

2 Answers2