Search bar in action bar

[chan96]

What do you think about hiding the search bar in the action bar until the user clicks the search button at the center of the page (on the main screen). With the setup right now, it is slightly redundant. Also, this could free up space for other things like sharing buttons. Once the user clicks the search button, any existing items that take up too much space in the action bar will be hidden and replaced by the full search bar. If the user cancels the search, then any items previously hidden will become un-hidden.

[rbarman]

I don't understand. Are you saying hide the search icon in the action bar on the main activity?

[chan96]

Yes, until the user presses the search button on the main screen. If the user cancels a search by pressing the X symbol, then it will be hidden again. This is mainly for the main screen.

[rbarman]

Sure.

[rbarman]

There's another thing that we should think of. The blue search button is visible when the android keyboard pops up.
The user might click on the blue search button to search which will do nothing as the button just opens up the search view.

We could ...

1. Move the blue buttons lower
2. Set the blue buttons invisible when the search view is not iconified.
3. other

[chan96]

I am not really sure. If we make the buttons disapear, it would disrupt the layout. If the buttons are moved lower, there seems to be too much white space towards the center of the page.

Would it be possible to make the search button do a search, once the search field becomes visible for typing? Another idea is to start a new activity with only a search bar, or have the search bar appear right above the buttons on the main screen, similar to google's homepage, but this seems kind of cheesy.

[rbarman]

1. How would making the buttons disappear disrupt the layout?
2. I agree the buttons should not move any lower
3. It should be possible to make the search button do a search. It would be a bit clunky though as the onClickListener for the button would have 2 functions then, opening the search and executing a search. We might have to set a boolean to do this effectively.
4. I don't think starting a new activity with a search bar is necessary. This is the same thing as have the image buttons invisible.
5. The searchView in the actionbar will stay in the actionbar. If you want a search interface above the button then you need to create a new search dialog or widget within the Main Activity.

[chan96]

1. I feel like the user does not really expect the buttons to disappear, and when they do, they open up a blank space in the center.
   2 - 5. Same.

[rbarman]

You're right.
So..

1. Keep as is
2. Let the user press search and launch Specific Quote Activity

I'm now leaning towards (2) because the user can click on randomButton and be able to launch Random Quote Activity while searchView is iconified. Or we could always not let the user be able to launch the activity while searchView is iconified, but this is kind of a step back.

[chan96]

(2) sounds good. To clarify, so when the user presses the search button after entering something, the specific quote activity is launched?

[rbarman]

No.

Currently the onClickListener of searchButton will only open the searchView (set isIconified to false).
The randomButton will launch the random quote activity though.

The specific quote activity is currently being launched by the onQueryTextSubmit of the onQueryTextListener of the searchView