In order to implement search with assistance from the Android system (to deliver search queries
to an activity and provide search suggestions), your application must provide a search configuration
in the form of an XML file.
This page describes the search configuration file in terms of its syntax and usage. For more
information about how to implement search features for your application, begin with the developer
guide about Creating a Search Interface.
- file location:
res/xml/filename.xml
Android uses the filename as the resource ID.- syntax:
-
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:label="string resource"
android:hint="string resource"
android:searchMode=["queryRewriteFromData" | "queryRewriteFromText"]
android:searchButtonText="string resource"
android:inputType="inputType"
android:imeOptions="imeOptions"
android:searchSuggestAuthority="string"
android:searchSuggestPath="string"
android:searchSuggestSelection="string"
android:searchSuggestIntentAction="string"
android:searchSuggestIntentData="string"
android:searchSuggestThreshold="int"
android:includeInGlobalSearch=["true" | "false"]
android:searchSettingsDescription="string resource"
android:queryAfterZeroResults=["true" | "false"]
android:voiceSearchMode=["showVoiceSearchButton" | "launchWebSearch" | "launchRecognizer"]
android:voiceLanguageModel=["free-form" | "web_search"]
android:voicePromptText="string resource"
android:voiceLanguage="string"
android:voiceMaxResults="int"
>
<actionkey
android:keycode="KEYCODE"
android:queryActionMsg="string"
android:suggestActionMsg="string"
android:suggestActionMsgColumn="string" >
</searchable>
- elements:
-
<searchable>- Defines all search configurations used by the Android system to provide assisted search.
attributes:
android:label- String resource. (Required.) The name of your application.
It should be the same as the name applied to the
android:label attribute of your <activity> or
<application> manifest element. This label is only visible to the user when you set
android:includeInGlobalSearch to "true", in which case, this label is used to identify
your application as a searchable item in the system's search settings.
android:hint- String resource. (Recommended.) The text to display in the search text field when
no text has been entered. It provides a hint to the user about what
content is searchable. For consistency with other Android applications, you should format the
string for
android:hint as "Search <content-or-product>". For example,
"Search songs and artists" or "Search YouTube".
android:searchMode- Keyword. Sets additional modes that control the search presentation.
Currently available modes define how the query text should be rewritten when a custom suggestion
receives focus. The following mode values are accepted:
For more information, see the discussion about rewriting the query text in Adding Custom Suggestions.
android:searchButtonText- String resource. The text to display in the button that executes search. By
default, the button shows a search icon (a magnifying glass), which is ideal for
internationalization, so you should not use this attribute to change the button unless the
behavior is something other than a search (such as a URL request in a web browser).
android:inputType- Keyword. Defines the type of input method (such as the type of soft keyboard)
to use. For most searches, in which free-form text is expected, you don't
need this attribute. See
inputType for a list of suitable values for this
attribute.
android:imeOptions- Keyword. Supplies additional options for the input method.
For most searches, in which free-form text is expected, you don't need this attribute. The
default IME is "actionSearch" (provides the "search" button instead of a carriage
return in the soft keyboard). See
imeOptions for a list of suitable values
for this attribute.
Search suggestion attributes
If you have defined a content provider to generate search suggestions, you need to
define additional attributes that configure communications with the content
provider. When providing search suggestions, you need some of the following
<searchable> attributes:
android:searchSuggestAuthority- String. (Required to provide search suggestions.)
This value must match the authority string provided in the
android:authorities
attribute of the Android manifest <provider> element.
android:searchSuggestPath- String. This path is used as a portion of the suggestions
query
Uri, after the prefix and authority, but before
the standard suggestions path.
This is only required if you have a single content provider issuing different types
of suggestions (such as for different data types) and you need
a way to disambiguate the suggestions queries when you receive them.
android:searchSuggestSelection- String. This value is passed into your
query function as the
selection parameter. Typically this is a WHERE clause
for your database, and should contain a single question mark, which is a placeholder for the
actual query string that has been typed by the user (for example, "query=?"). However, you
can also use any non-null value to trigger the delivery of the query text via the selectionArgs parameter (and then ignore the selection parameter).
android:searchSuggestIntentAction- String. The default intent action to be used when a user
clicks on a custom search suggestion (such as
"android.intent.action.VIEW").
If this is not overridden by the selected suggestion (via the SUGGEST_COLUMN_INTENT_ACTION column), this value is placed in the action
field of the Intent when the user clicks a suggestion.
android:searchSuggestIntentData- String. The default intent data to be used when a user
clicks on a custom search suggestion.
If not overridden by the selected suggestion (via the
SUGGEST_COLUMN_INTENT_DATA column), this value is
placed in the data field of the Intent when the user clicks
a suggestion.
android:searchSuggestThreshold- Integer. The minimum number of characters needed to
trigger a suggestion look-up. Only guarantees that the system will not query your
content provider for anything shorter than the threshold. The default value is 0.
For more information about the above attributes for search suggestions, see the guides for
Adding Recent Query Suggestions and
Adding Custom Suggestions.
Quick Search Box attributes
To make your custom search suggestions available to Quick Search Box, you need some of the
following <searchable> attributes:
android:includeInGlobalSearch- Boolean. (Required to provide search suggestions in
Quick Search Box.) Set to "true" if you want your suggestions to be
included in the globally accessible Quick Search Box. The user must
still enable your application as a searchable item in the system search settings before
your suggestions will appear in Quick Search Box.
android:searchSettingsDescription- String. Provides a brief description of the search suggestions that you provide
to Quick Search Box, which is displayed in the searchable items entry for your application.
Your description should concisely describe the content that is searchable. For example, "Artists,
albums, and tracks" for a music application, or "Saved notes" for a notepad application.
android:queryAfterZeroResults- Boolean. Set to "true" if you want your content provider to be invoked for
supersets of queries that have returned zero results in the past. For example, if
your content provider returned zero results for "bo", it should be requiried for "bob". If set to
"false", supersets are ignored for a single session ("bob" does not invoke a requery). This lasts
only for the life of the search dialog or the life of the activity when using the search widget
(when the search dialog or activity is reopened, "bo" queries your
content provider again). The default value is false.
Voice search attributes
To enable voice search, you'll need some of the
following <searchable> attributes:
android:voiceSearchMode- Keyword. (Required to provide voice search capabilities.)
Enables voice search, with a specific mode for voice search.
(Voice search may not be provided by the device, in which case these flags
have no effect.) The following mode values are accepted:
| Value | Description |
|---|
"showVoiceSearchButton" |
Display a voice search button, if voice search is available on the device. If set,
then either "launchWebSearch" or "launchRecognizer" must also be set
(separated by the pipe | character). |
"launchWebSearch" |
The voice search button takes the user directly
to a built-in voice web search activity. Most applications don't need this flag, as
it takes the user away from the activity in which search was invoked. |
"launchRecognizer" |
The voice search button takes
the user directly to a built-in voice recording activity. This activity
prompts the user to speak, transcribes the spoken text, and forwards the resulting
query text to the searchable activity, just as if the user typed it into the
search UI and clicked the search button. |
android:voiceLanguageModel- Keyword. The language model that
should be used by the voice recognition system. The following values are accepted:
| Value | Description |
|---|
"free_form" |
Use free-form speech recognition for dictating queries. This is primarily
optimized for English. This is the default. |
"web_search" |
Use web-search-term recognition for shorter, search-like phrases. This is
available in more languages than "free_form". |
Also see
EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL for more
information.
android:voicePromptText- String. An additional message to display in the voice input dialog.
android:voiceLanguage- String. The spoken language to be expected, expressed as the string value of
a constants in
Locale (such as "de" for German or "fr" for
French). This is needed only if it is different from the current value of Locale.getDefault().
android:voiceMaxResults- Integer. Forces the maximum number of results to return,
including the "best" result which is always provided as the
ACTION_SEARCH intent's primary
query. Must be 1 or greater. Use EXTRA_RESULTS to
get the results from the intent.
If not provided, the recognizer chooses how many results to return.
<actionkey>- Defines a device key and behavior for a search action. A search action provides a
special behavior at the touch of a button on the device, based on the current query or focused
suggestion. For example, the Contacts application provides a search action to initiate a phone call
to the currenly focused contact suggestion at the press of the CALL button.
Not all action keys are available on every device, and not
all keys are allowed to be overriden in this way. For example, the "Home" key cannot be used and
must always return to the home screen. Also be sure not to define an action
key for a key that's needed for typing a search query. This essentially limits the
available and reasonable action keys to the call button and menu button. Also note that action
keys are not generally discoverable, so you should not provide them as a core user feature.
You must define the android:keycode to define the key and at least one of the
other three attributes in order to define the search action.
attributes:
android:keycode- String. (Required.) A key code from
KeyEvent that represents the action key
you wish to respond to (for example "KEYCODE_CALL"). This is added to the
ACTION_SEARCH intent that is passed to your
searchable activity. To examine the key code, use
getIntExtra(SearchManager.ACTION_KEY). Not all
keys are supported for a search action, as many of them are used for typing, navigation, or system
functions.
android:queryActionMsg- String. An action message to be sent if the action key is pressed while the
user is entering query text. This is added to the
ACTION_SEARCH intent that the system
passes to your searchable activity. To examine the string, use
getStringExtra(SearchManager.ACTION_MSG).
android:suggestActionMsg- String. An action message to be sent if the action key is pressed while a
suggestion is in focus. This is added to the
intent that that the system passes to your searchable activity (using the action
you've defined for the suggestion). To examine the string,
use
getStringExtra(SearchManager.ACTION_MSG). This should only be used if all your
suggestions support this action key. If not all suggestions can handle the same action key, then
you must instead use the following android:suggestActionMsgColumn attribute.
android:suggestActionMsgColumn- String. The name of the column in your content provider that defines the
action message for this action key, which is to be sent if the user presses the action key while a
suggestion is in focus. This attribute lets you control the
action key on a suggestion-by-suggestion basis, because, instead of using the
android:suggestActionMsg attribute to define the action message for all suggestions, each entry in
your content provider provides its own action message.
First, you must define a column in your
content provider for each suggestion to provide an action message, then provide the name of that
column in this attribute. The system looks at your suggestion cursor,
using the string provided here to select your action message column, and
then select the action message string from the Cursor. That string is added to the
intent that the system passes to your searchable activity (using the action you've
defined for suggestions). To examine the string, use getStringExtra(SearchManager.ACTION_MSG). If the data
does not exist for the selected suggestion, the action key is ignored.
- example:
- XML file saved at
res/xml/searchable.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<searchable xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:label="@string/search_label"
android:hint="@string/search_hint"
android:searchSuggestAuthority="dictionary"
android:searchSuggestIntentAction="android.intent.action.VIEW"
android:includeInGlobalSearch="true"
android:searchSettingsDescription="@string/settings_description" >
</searchable>
