Android Actionbar SearchView change icon and remove extra spacing

android, android-actionbar, searchview

Solution

Add a separate `Theme` as following for changing the search icon.

<style name="AppTheme.SearchView" parent="Widget.AppCompat.SearchView">
    <item name="searchIcon">@mipmap/ic_search_white</item>
    <item name="closeIcon">@mipmap/ic_clear_white</item>
</style>

Inside your `Base Theme`

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="MyMaterialTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

    <item name="searchViewStyle">@style/AppTheme.SearchView</item>

</style>

Problem

I am implementing SearchView. I have added Search view and all its functionality successfully. Now i want to make it looks great. I need two changes i tried every thing but nothing worked for me : - I want to change search icon. - I want to remove extra spacing at left side of searchView. This is how currently my searchView looks like: And here is what i want to make menu/menu_search_action.xml ``` <menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" tools:context=".MainActivity"> <item android:id="@+id/action_search" android:icon="@drawable/location_icon" android:orderInCategory="100" android:title="@string/action_search" app:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView" app:showAsAction="always|collapseActionView" /> ``` SearchCategoriesActivity.java ``` @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater(); inflater.inflate(R.menu.menu_search_action, menu); MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search); searchItem.expandActionView(); MenuItemCompat.setOnActionExpandListener(searchItem, new MenuItemCompat.OnActionExpandListener() { @Override public boolean onMenuItemActionExpand(MenuItem item) { return true; } @Override public boolean onMenuItemActionCollapse(MenuItem item) { //DO SOMETHING WHEN THE SEARCHVIEW IS CLOSING back(); return false; } }); SearchManager searchManager = (SearchManager) getSystemService(Context.SEARCH_SERVICE); searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat .getActionView(searchItem); if (searchView != null) { searchView.setSearchableInfo(searchManager .getSearchableInfo(getComponentName())); searchView.setIconifiedByDefault(false); searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(new SearchView.OnQueryTextListener() { @Override public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String query) { callSearch(query); return true; } @Override public boolean onQueryTextChange(String newText) { callSearch(newText); return true; } }); } for (TextView textView : findChildrenByClass(searchView, TextView.class)) { textView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE); } return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu); } @Override public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) { switch (item.getItemId()) { case android.R.id.home: back(); return true; default: return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item); } } @Override public void onBackPressed() { back(); } private void back() { finish(); } public static <V extends View> Collection<V> findChildrenByClass( ViewGroup viewGroup, Class<V> clazz) { return gatherChildrenByClass(viewGroup, clazz, new ArrayList<V>()); } private static <V extends View> Collection<V> gatherChildrenByClass( ViewGroup viewGroup, Class<V> clazz, Collection<V> childrenFound) { for (int i = 0; i < viewGroup.getChildCount(); i++) { final View child = viewGroup.getChildAt(i); if (clazz.isAssignableFrom(child.getClass())) { childrenFound.add((V) child); } if (child instanceof ViewGroup) { gatherChildrenByClass((ViewGroup) child, clazz, childrenFound); } } return childrenFound; } ```

Original source