{"id":729,"date":"2021-07-16T05:36:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T05:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meatpie\/?p=729"},"modified":"2021-07-16T05:36:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T05:36:38","slug":"age-calculator-autocomplete-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/age-calculator-autocomplete-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Age Calculator – AutoComplete Field"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don’t want to use a calendar selector. You’re always hunting backwards and forwards for the correct month. I decided it would be better to use an AutoComplete text field. The most you ever have to do is click 3 letters, but that is only if you are born in June or July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It is a bit fiddly, but very straight-forward. And I think it is very user friendly. Thanks to Sai Geetha’s Blog – Android – Auto Complete Text View | Android Beginner Dev Tutorial.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Screenshot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the layout you need an AutoCompleteTextField as follows. Basically it is identical to EditText – just has a different tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <AutoCompleteTextView\n            android:layout_width=\"wrap_content\"\n            android:layout_height=\"wrap_content\"\n            android:id=\"@+id\/edit_month\" \n    \/><\/code><\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the project, in the values folder, add a new resource file called months.xml. These are the values that it will use in the autocomplete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>\r\n<resources>\r\n    <string-array name=\"months\">\r\n        <item >January<\/item>\r\n        <item >February<\/item>\r\n        <item >March<\/item>\r\n        <item >April<\/item>\r\n        <item >May<\/item>\r\n        <item >June<\/item>\r\n        <item >July<\/item>\r\n        <item >August<\/item>\r\n        <item >September<\/item>\r\n        <item >October<\/item>\r\n        <item >November<\/item>\r\n        <item >December<\/item>\r\n    <\/string-array>\r\n<\/resources><\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Then in ActivityMain you hook it all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
  • Load the month names from your array in Resources<\/li>
  • Put this array into a layout field adapter 
    • You could make your own XML for the layout, but I’m happy with simple_list_item_1<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
    • Locate the the text field in the layout file <\/li>
    • The threshold is how many letters you have to type before it will suggest anything 
      • In a short list like this, 1 is perfect – for a long list 3 will probably be better<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
      • Add the adapter to the text field<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
                val monthNames =resources.getStringArray(R.array.months)\r\n        val adapter: ArrayAdapter<String> =\r\n            ArrayAdapter<String>(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, monthNames)\r\n\r\n        birthMonth = findViewById(R.id.edit_month) as AutoCompleteTextView\r\n        birthMonth!!.setThreshold(1)\r\n        birthMonth!!.setAdapter(adapter)\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
        I don’t want to use a calendar selector. You’re always hunting backwards and forwards for the correct month. I decided it would be better to use an AutoComplete text field. The most you ever have to do is click 3 letters, but that is only if you are born in June or July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[48,49,50,35],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","category-software","tag-age-calculator","tag-android","tag-autocompletetextview","tag-kotlin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snersbots.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}