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Architecture of activity / fragments for search bar

I have a project in which on main screen I show a list of items . (An activity and a fragment that contains the list )
In title bar I want to add a search functionality with autocompletetextview .
Now in title bar there are the title and "search" button . When the search will be clicked the title will be gone and autocomplete visible .
I would like to follow the functionality that is now in common apps : messages , gmail etc but I can t figure what it is the best solution regarding architecture of fragments/activity components to implement .
1, When I clicks the search button to show another fragment ?
2. When I click search button , title change visibility to gone and it will be used the same fragment with items and it will be updated ?

try with a simple MVP, organizing the view in a passive view(less data as possible). I have the feeling you are not practical of architecture if you ask, because looks as a simple question. MVP is in my personal opinion the best way to start.
you can test your app View using Espresso, and the business logic into the presenter with Junit.
From the project indicated on the first link, you can easy clone the project and see an App that is quite similar to the one you use( on click opens a new activity, activities/fragment) plus much more.

Navigating with Android Navigation Drawer

i am creating a diary application that has a page for showing: diary entries, new diary entries and events that the user has coming up, my application will use a database to store entries and display.
I was wondering how best to go about navigation in my app, as i wanted to use a navigation drawer. Can navigation drawer's be used to navigate between activities and if not how would i implement fragments to be handle the functionality i want?

A NavigationDrawer is typically used to navigate between a few Fragments. A main Activity is used to handle user interaction with the NavigationDrawer and will typically attach the corresponding Fragment to a container within the Activity.
With that being said, your best bet would be following the full tutorial posted on the Android developers webpage. The tutorial contains each step necessary to successfully implement a NavigationDrawer in your application. In addition, you may download the completed and functional project from that tutorial and import it into your IDE.
Good luck and happy coding!

Android: Creating tabs within a fragment

This question is a bit hard to word, I will try my best.
I have this android app that uses a navigation drawer, so within the main_activity, the navigation drawer would change the different kinds of fragments that I want.
Within one fragment, I want it to be able to have four tabs. The functionality of the tabs is very simple as it basically just display some pictures and data. However, I don't think android allows you to have a tabhost within a fragment.
I can achieve a similar result by creating my own buttons at the top and it dynamically changes the View that is within this fragment, however, I am wondering is there a more intuitive way of achievement the same result?

You can use TabHost inside a Fragment just fine. A TabActivity is not necessary to host the tabs. TabActivity only provides some functionality that you can also add to a Fragment yourself. Check out the TabHost docs, especially the section about addTab(). You can also search here on SO and you will find very helpful posts like this one.

switch to a new activity, instead of switching fragments, when jfeinstein10's slidingmenu list item is clicked

I have seen a few questions raised on this topic (for e.g.: https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu/issues/5) but I am still unclear. I hope somebody can clarify this.
Context:
See https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu
I have an android app that organizes screens by activities and fragments (i.e.) each screen is an activity containing one or more fragments.
The new requirement is to add a sliding menu (similar to what this library provides).
Issue:
It appears from the examples and discussion that the right model would be to have just 1 MAIN ACTIVITY that will then switch in/out fragments belonging to the different screens. In fact the author mentions in the above thread: "If you were to launch Activities based upon the list selection, then you would not have the behavior where you swap the views that you're talking about. " and also "You can't put an Activity into the above view. That doesn't really make sense when you think about what an Activity is. ".
Why doesn't it make sense? Obviously, I am missing the point here.
Question:
Given that my project already contains multiple activities (one corresponding to each screen), is my only option then to re-organize the project to have JUST 1 MAIN ACTIVITY, in order to use this library? Or alternatively, is there any way to launch a new activity when a list item in the sliding menu is clicked, and still observe the sliding menu behavior, [EDIT- added the last part to be more clear] or in other words, on how exactly to use this library within my existing app design.
Thanks in advance

First, you can't have an Activity inside another and activities are completely different from views as stated in the docs:
An activity is a single, focused thing that the user can do.
Now, to answer your question, it all depends on how you want your app to behave. You could have your activities with the sliding menu implement the onClosedListener and switch to the selected activity from there. This will give you the animation of closing the menu before switching activities. It will also give you a weird effect since every time you select something from your menu you'll see the animation of a new activity coming to the front.
I think the best approach would be to have a "common purpose" between all your sliding menu options. For example, in one of my projects I have to allow the users to select between lists of different types of data. When the user selects anything from the menu, I load a new list fragment into the right corner where he may choose the item he wants to view or edit. That's the app entry point and also the only place were I have a sliding menu in my app. It is pretty much the same for every app that implements this UI design pattern. Look at google+, currents and youtube where the side menu lets you choose which feed or content to show. Once a user makes a selection, just open a new activity for the selected item (a g+ post, a video, a news article, a tweet or whatever it is).
Your app doesn't have to have lists of different data or anything like that to use the sliding menu, but keep in mind that the activity with the sliding menu should have a clear, focused goal with respect to its functionality and purpose. Having a sliding menu because many other apps have one is a bad choice, you should use it with a specific objective. Also keep in mind that applying the sliding menu everywhere would interfere with the platform's navigation pattern and lead to an overall bad user experience since it wouldn't behave as the other apps.

It doesn't make sense to place an Activity into the above view because the Activity is the main controller for the view of each screen. The Activity also shows views and keeps track of Fragments (which in turn are mini controllers, with or without their own views). So placing an Activity in the above view would mean that you would place an Activity in an Activity... Wich is impossible.
From what I can derive from your text I think it would be wise to read through the Android developer guide on Activities and Fragment again (http://developer.android.com/guide/components/activities.html) to get a better understanding of how the concept of Android works.
Now to your question:
I am not clear on what you are trying to achieve but if you want your app, with menu to behave like, say, the Google+ app then one way of doing it is to implement a base class that extends the Activity class (or what ever base Activity used in your project) and let the base set the SlidingMenu. Then you would simple extend your base Activity in each of the Activities that are supposed to have a menu.
You could also do it the way you describe it, but then you would end up with a classic example of a God object (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_object). It's a neat way to practice your Fragment juggling skills and switching between Fragments instead of starting new Activities does have it's use cases, but I still wouldn't recommend it for a project with more then a few views.

Here is the answer that came closest to the issue I had - http://www.verious.com/article/polishing-the-sliding-app-menu/. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the last section titled "Using the fly-in app menu between Activities". This is one option if you have a lot of activities in your existing app and want to avoid extensive re-factoring. I haven't tried this out yet but its worth being aware of.

android: showing GoogleMap in Fragments without using MapActivity

I looked and searched but don't see an answer but seen many commerical Android apps that can display Google Maps in fragments along with other fragments to display lists of items and other UI fragments.
I do not know if I need to use MapActivity for the whole app since I have a mix of fragments in addition to wanting to display google map in one of the fragments.
Its like this:
Fragment 1: displays Summary of User Settings
Fragment 2: displays the Google Map of user's location
Fragment 3: displays a list of items relevant to the user
I am using a Facebook-like menu UI to navigate among the Fragments. I like to know here is....
Can I mixed these Fragments together without using MapsActivity.
If I do need to use MapsActivity, how do work it with the other fragments that displays other UI elements that doesn't use MapsActivity's functions.
Thanks in advance.

The new Google Maps API V2 for Android has just been released, which includes a MapFragment class, take a look:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/