Develop Reference

Problem with AutoCompleteTextView and Spinner using the same Adapter

I have a list of "categories" that are stored as Strings in an ArrayAdapter in my app. This much is pretty simple. The adapter is a field of the Activity and accessible everywhere. It is populated with values during onCreate().
I have a "Entry" Dialog that contains an AutoCompleteTextView which uses this adapter and works very well. This is basically a dialog to add new items to a list.
I also have a second Dialog which acts as a filter for my list and has a single Spinner which when the Dialog is created, uses the same ArrayAdapter. Here's the problem.
If I use the filter Dialog before the entry Dialog, the Spinner is populated with all of the items from the adapter. Works well.
Any and every time I use the entry Dialog, the AutoCompleteTextView works properly.
The problem comes if I use the entry Dialog and select an item in the AutoCompleteTextView when it suggests something. After selecting a suggested item in the popup, even if I cancel the entry Dialog, the next time I bring up the filter Dialog, the Spinner initially shows the item that was last selected from the AutoCompleteTextView (instead of the first item in the adapter), and only displays that single item in the Spinner's list if clicked/touched. The only way to fix it is to end the application and re-open it. I'm not getting any errors or anything in logcat that is helpful.
EDIT - Okay, I've removed the previous code to replace it with a simple test case that I produced. The bottom line is that I would like to know if this is a bug, or if if it is expected results. When a suggestion is selected in an AutoCompleteTextView, I can confirm that the ArrayAdapter that is linked to it has filtering applied so that it's count is affected and the only items shown if the adapter is accessed in a Spinner will be those that were filtered down to. I also added button to display a toast to show that the count is affected. Type "te" in the autocomplete, select either Test entry. They try the spinner or click the button to see the adapter's count is only 2.
So the final question is now... can the adapter's filter be reset (other than by typing in and clearing the AutoCompleteTextView)? I can't find any method to do this. I have worked around the problem in my actual app by setting up a temporary adapter, copying over the main adapters items and setting the views to use the temporary adapter instead. My phone is running 2.2, and I have tested as high as 2.3.3 API level 10 in an emulator.
The xml for main.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
<AutoCompleteTextView android:id="#+id/actv"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />
<Spinner android:id="#+id/spinner"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerInParent="true" />
<Button android:id="#+id/button"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Check It"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerInParent="true" />
</RelativeLayout>
The code for MainActivity.java
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
AutoCompleteTextView actv;
Spinner spinner;
Button button;
String [] adapterList = {"Test1", "Test2", "Garbage1", "Garbage2"};
ArrayAdapter<String> adapter;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line, adapterList);
actv = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.actv);
spinner = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner);
button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);
actv.setAdapter(adapter);
spinner.setAdapter(adapter);
button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "" + adapter.getCount() + " Items in Adapter", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
});
}
}

Looking at AutoCompleteTextView source code, it does filter the ArrayAdapter:
http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.2_r1.1/android/widget/AutoCompleteTextView.java#AutoCompleteTextView.performFiltering%28java.lang.CharSequence%2Cint%29
You may want to remove the filter on an onClick callback in the spinner:
Filter filter = adapter.getFilter();
filter = null;
(see the setAdapter method in AutoCompleteTextView, around line 600)
http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.2_r1.1/android/widget/ArrayAdapter.java#ArrayAdapter.getFilter%28%29
Let me know if it works
BTW, is the adapter going to change dynamically? You're "workaround" of two adapters might be a better option than messing with the filter. What if the user starts a word, then clicks the spinner, cancels it and goes back to the word? Now the autocompletion will not make sense, unless you save the filter and restore it somehow.
I do believe that two adapters (based on the same string array) is a better solution.

Error while placing a spinner inside Activity Group

I have an activity group containing 3 activities. When a button is pressed, I enter into this activity group and show the 1st activity. From the 1st activity I can goto 2nd activity and from 2nd activity I can goto 3rd activity.
I have a spinner in this 3rd activity layout. Problem is I am not able to click on that spinner. Error gets displayed showing:
12-31 11:29:41.082: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(474): android.view.WindowManager$BadTokenException: Unable to add window -- token android.app.LocalActivityManager$LocalActivityRecord#43791b18 is not valid; is your activity running?
How can I solve this issue? Can anyone plz help...
Hi,
Please find the code for spinner attached:
setContentView(R.layout.requestinfo);
Spinner spinner = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner);
ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(
PGDealerInfoRequestActivity.this, R.array.request_options, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
spinner.setAdapter(adapter);
Inside requestinfo.xml,
<Spinner android:id="#+id/spinner" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:textColor="#android:color/darker_gray"
android:textSize="12sp" android:textStyle="bold"
android:layout_marginLeft="10dp" android:layout_marginTop="8dp" />

The error was with the setContentView.
I had given
setContentView(R.layout.mylayout);
Instead of that we should give,
View viewToLoad = LayoutInflater.from(this.getParent()).inflate(R.layout.mylayout, null);
this.setContentView(viewToLoad);
And the spinner code is:
Spinner spinner = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner);
ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(
this, R.array.request_options, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
spinner.setAdapter(adapter);

can you add spiner.setDropDownViewResource()?and in your initialization ,you use context called this or getApplicationContext(),for example AlertDialog.Builder(xxx.this) => AlertDialog.Builder(this.getParent())

this may solve your problem
this.getParent()
i used it in my code many times. it worked f9.

Mathew his method works:
View viewToLoad = LayoutInflater.from(this.getParent()).inflate(R.layout.mylayout, null);
this.setContentView(viewToLoad);
i folowed this method to and then my application crashes on button click.
To solve this remove the onClick method out the xml file.
Go to the java class and add button.setOnClickListener!

Android AutoCompleteTextView onClick problem

I've created an AutoCompleteTextView to search through a list of course titles (obtained from an sqlite db) and what I want to do is, when the user clicks on a title from the drop-down menu, the whole information from the database about his selection appears in a text view created below the AutoCompleteTextView.
I am pretty new to programming, especially for android and I would really appreciate it if someone could explain me how exactly to use setOnItemClickListener to call an instance in the database in the TextView below.
The code for the layout (R.layout.main_courses) is
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:padding="5dp">
<AutoCompleteTextView
android:id="#+id/autocomplete_course"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="Search for a course"/>
<TextView
android:id="#+id/text"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#id/autocomplete_course"
android:hint="Information about the course will appear here" />
</RelativeLayout>
and the code for the AutoCompleteTextView I've written so far is:
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main_courses);
DataBase db = new DataBase(this.getApplicationContext());
db.openDataBase();
ArrayList<String> aCourses = db.getCoursesArr();
db.close();
AutoCompleteTextView search = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.autocomplete_course);
ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_courses, aCourses);
search.setAdapter(adapter);
}

First of all you should try using a CursorAdapter instead of getting an array from it. Check this link for more info.
There is a method in AutoCompleteTextView that let you decide how many letters the user must type before the dropdown is shown, setThreshold. The issue is that it only allows >=1 values.
If you check this class src code, the good news is that the variable set by setThreshold() is only used in this method:
public boolean enoughToFilter() {
return getText().length() >= mThreshold;
}
So the first thing I would try is extending AutoCompleteTextView and override that method to always return true.
NOTE: Keep in mind that this might change in the future and it can get broken.

Problems with creating spinner

In my app I'm developing, I have a spinner in an alert dialog box.
The spinner works fine, but when I added the following lines to add the array to the spinner, my app crashing a few seconds after starting up:
ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(this, R.array.newFileTypeArray, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
newFileType.setAdapter(adapter);
What am I doing wrong?
These Android spinners seem to be a bit complicated as well, I don't think I'll be able to remember how to make them without referencing to the Android docs.

Problem solved.
I realised that the following line:
final Spinner newfiletypespinner = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.newfiletypespinner);
I had to change to:
final Spinner newfiletypespinner = (Spinner) newFileDialogInflated.findViewById(R.id.newfiletypespinner);
With "newFileDialogInflated" being the previously inflated view so I could have a custom AlertDialog view:
final View newFileDialogInflated = View.inflate(this, R.layout.newfileview, null);
But thanks for the help!

Hard to say for sure whether you've omitted it from your snippet or omitted it from your code, but do you initialize newFileType as a spinner?
Spinner newFileType = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.newFileTypeSpinner);
or similar? If you're trying to set its adapter before initializing it, that would explain it.

Using a spinner on another view with a different class defined (Android)

Having a problem loading an array into a spinner that is located on a different view. The array is defined properly in arrays.xml with a name of beerstyles. The beerstylespinner is defined as the id of a spinner in carbonationcalculator_view.xml. This works when the code is in the main java class but not the additional carbonationcalculator class. Everything works with the exception of the spinner not being populated with the array.
Here is the code:
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.carbonationcalculator_view);
Spinner s = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.beerstylespinner);
ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(
this, R.array.beerstyles, R.layout.carbonationcalculator_view);
adapter.setDropDownViewResource(R.layout.carbonationcalculator_view);
s.setAdapter(adapter);
}

I'm not sure this will fix the problem, but there seems to be some confusion on what layout to set for the Adapter's drop down resource. setContentView() should be used for the view you want set for the activity; however, the drop down resource should be what you want each row to look like.
What you should be using is a something like android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1. You can emulate the demo List1.java, but instead of their constructor you would use:
ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(
this, R.array.beerstyles, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1);
Also, you don't need to call ArrayAdapter.setDropDownViewResource() after using ArrayAdapter.createFromResource() - the third parameter is the drop down view resource.