How can I avoid autocomplete dropdown appearing when text is programmatically set?

Question

I have an AutoCompleteTextView in my layout. I also have an alternative way to select the same items which are present in the AutoCompleteTextView. When the alternative way is selected, I populate the value in the AutoCompleteTextView via:

autoCompleteTextView.setText(valueFromAlternativeSource);

where valueFromAlternativeSource is one of the valid auto complete options. The trouble with this is that the autocomplete dropdown appears when setText is called. Putting the following line after the above doesn't work:

autoCompleteTextView.dismissDropDown();  //Doesn't work.  Why?

Any ideas on why dismiss dropdown isn't working or other ways I could dismiss the dropdown?

Your solution does not work because setText(CharSequence) method starts asynchronous work. Whenever the text changes, the filter of the Adapter is used to filter for possible proposals to show. Since the filter can take a long time, it is called asynchronously. Some time later the filter returns and its results get displayed when the UI thread gets processing time again. At this point in time the dismissDropDown() method has long been completed – which is why this method has no effect whatsoever." Source: http://www.grokkingandroid.com/how-androids-autocompletetextview-nearly-drove-me-nuts/ — Singed, Jan 04 '16 at 13:46

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited May 31 '14 at 08:48

16

This works fine for me and is less complex:

ListAdapter adapter = autoCompleteTextView.getAdapter();
autoCompleteTextView.setAdapter(null);
autoCompleteTextView.setText("whatever");
autoCompleteTextView.setAdapter(adapter);

edited May 31 '14 at 08:48

Mark

2,380
11
29
49

answered Feb 27 '13 at 14:31

drlue

1,143
9
8

great, but I have to assign the adapter again before set adapter, and works fine for show hide – Noor Hossain Oct 16 '20 at 20:37

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered May 09 '14 at 15:22

If you want to support API<17, Subclass AutoCompleteTextview and override setText(text, filter) method

@Override
public void setText(CharSequence text, boolean filter) {
    if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT>=17) {
        super.setText(text, filter);
    }else{
        if(filter){
            setText(text);
        }else{
            ListAdapter adapter = getAdapter();
            setAdapter(null);
            setText(text);
            if(adapter instanceof ArrayAdapter)
                setAdapter((ArrayAdapter) adapter);
            else
                setAdapter((CursorAdapter) adapter);
            //if you use more types of Adapter you can list them here
        }
    }
}

Then whenever you want to set the text manually call setText(text, false)

Best answer here just for the API<17 support! – Petro Mar 23 '15 at 14:09 — Petro, Mar 23 '15 at 14:09

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 26 '12 at 13:26

Looks like its a problem of the order how messages are processed. My work around looks like this:

//autoCompleteTextView.dismissDropDown();
new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        autoCompleteTextView.dismissDropDown();
}});

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 22 '13 at 12:27

3

autoCompleteTextView.setText(valueFromOtherMeans, filter);

     * @param filter If <code>false</code>, no filtering will be performed
     *        as a result of this call.

answered Mar 22 '13 at 12:27

Elango Balusamy

51
1
4

It would be nice if you add some prosa to your answer. – faceman Mar 22 '13 at 12:47

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 16 '12 at 10:35

My solution (but I don't like it, there must be something better):

autoCompleteTextView.setText(valueFromAlternativeSource);
autoCompleteTextView.setDropDownHeight(0);

autoCompleteTextView.setOnKeyListener(new OnKeyListener(){

   @Override
   public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
       autoCompleteTextView.setDropDownHeight(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
   }
}

How can I avoid autocomplete dropdown appearing when text is programmatically set?

5 Answers5

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