Develop Reference

Android: Expanded SearchView aligns right

In my app I want to create a searchview within an actionbar. I've used the following code.
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item android:id="#+id/autocomplete_search"
android:icon="#drawable/search_light"
android:title="#string/what_form_edit_text"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"
app:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView" /></menu>
With this code a search icons shows up in my activity. After clicking this icon the search view expands and aligns on the left side of my actionbar (the title is gone).
Now I want to achieve this behaviour when automatically expanding the searchview. I tried to change the values of showAsAction into "always" instead of "ifRoom|collapseActionView", but it's not working. The searchview gets expanded, but is aligned on the right side of the actionbar. Is there any way I am missing to align the searchview on the left side (without implementing my own toolbar and place the searchview within?). Thanks for any help :)

Try to use
app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
It should fix your issue.

Android: Change icon of action share item on Action Bar

I understand that this question has been asked here many times but after of spending hours searching for the solution I am unable to find one.
My requirement simple, I just want to change share icon on Action Bar to white color. I've the white drawables and using built-in Action Bar.
have tried setting icon in menu xml but didn't work. Any help would be appreciated.
<item
android:id="#+id/action_share"
android:actionProviderClass="android.widget.ShareActionProvider"
android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_action_share_white"
android:title="#string/action_share"/>

Take a look at the ShareActionProvider's onCreateActionView() method:
public View onCreateActionView() {
// Create the view and set its data model.
...
// Lookup and set the expand action icon.
TypedValue outTypedValue = new TypedValue();
mContext.getTheme().resolveAttribute(R.attr.actionModeShareDrawable, outTypedValue, true);
Drawable drawable = mContext.getResources().getDrawable(outTypedValue.resourceId);
...
So, to change this image, it looks like you should change the value of actionModeShareDrawable for your app's theme. Unfortunately this attribute seems not to be public in the framework (though it is if using AppCompat or ActionBarSherlock).
If you are using neither of these libraries, a possible solution is to create a subclass of ShareActionProvider and reimplement the onCreateActionView() method (though you'll have to duplicate its code and, possibly, the resources it uses).

Android actionbar icons always in overflow

I declared my menu items with android:showAsAction="ifRoom". My Activity is extending ActionBarActivity. In preview it is as expected but when run on my phone is it always in overflow.
From what I've seen nothing else is needed. My phone runs in Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
Am I missing anything else?

You have to define your own namespace, if you want to use the showAsAction attribute with ActionBarCompat(I assume you are using ActionBarCompat because you mentioned, that you're extending ActionBarActivity):
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
and use showAsAction like this:
<item [...] app:showAsAction="always"></item>

Just try this...
<item android:id="#+id/action_blah"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_c"
android:title="#string/action_blah"
app:showAsAction="(yourOptions)"/>
(yourOptions):
always = To force to show on the actionbar.
never = Not to show on your actionbar ever.
and
ifRoom = It will let your item if there is enough space on your action bar.
You can see these in Landscape mode.
HappyCoding

How to use my own custom EditText layout as a searchView

I have just starting using an ActionBar, everything is well apart from the search box. I am now wanting to use a SearchView but have found it to be hard to customize, is there a way to use my existing EditText based layout in place of the expandable SearchView?
The top one is the new SearchView and the bottom is my old one which I would like to use, I am not worried about any extras like autocomplete.
I have looked on google for some time but cannot find any solution, my XML for the menu looks like so :
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:id="#+id/btnSearch"
android:title="Search"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_action_search"
android:showAsAction="always|collapseActionView"
android:actionViewClass="android.widget.SearchView"
android:queryHint="blah blah"/>
...
</menu>
I have found that I can get the bottom line to look similar to my old search box by using some ugly looking reflection code, however it still does not look right, the padding etc is all wrong. I don't want any reflection, I just want to use my old layout.

I found something that could solve your problem:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/pro-tip-customize-the-android-search-view-widget/#.

I wrote this class to help with SearchView customization:
https://gist.github.com/jaredrummler/c408c9d897fd92d5d116
You could do something like this after inflating the menu in onCreateOptionsMenu:
SearchViewStyle.on(menu, R.id.your_search_id)
.setSearchPlateDrawableId(R.drawable.your_edit_text);

How to customize ActionBarSherlock tabs and tab bar

I want to customize ActionBarSherlock tabs and tab bar.It is like this.
I want make it like this

You could use a custom view to display the tabs. You could try a 3-arg LinearLayout constructor (added in API 11). By specifying a default style in an XML file, the library tends to leverage the system layout inflator. So, you can also do a similar work around
<LinearLayout style="?attr/actionBarTabStyle" />
And then add the below code
LineraLayout tabView = LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(R.layout.my_tab, null);
//set your layout params and setCustomView

Here is two links which will help you to customize ABS.
Customize ActionBar TabBar (ActionBarSherlock)
And
How to customize ActionBar in Android (ActionbarSherlock)?
basically you need to make changes in ABS themes and have to play with its drawable.