In your Application Manifest you need to define the current activity as a searchable activity.
<activity android:name="BrowseItems" android:label="@string/browseitems"
android:launchMode="singleTop">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data android:name="android.app.searchable"
android:resource="@xml/itemsearchable" />
</activity>
You then use the following code, which is from http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/search/search-dialog.html#LifeCycle
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.search);
handleIntent(getIntent());
}
@Override
protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {
setIntent(intent);
handleIntent(intent);
}
private void handleIntent(Intent intent) {
if (Intent.ACTION_SEARCH.equals(intent.getAction())) {
String query = intent.getStringExtra(SearchManager.QUERY);
// Do work using string
}
}
You can then use the string to reload your activity, if its a list activity you can call your code that you use to load data and use the string in that.