Android MultiAutoCompleteTextView to retrieve multiple contacts

Question

I am trying to modify a code that I have seen on stackoverflow for an AutoCompleteTextView so that i would return mutliple contacts for a MultiAutoCompleteTextView.

However, when I load this onto my Android phone I can no longer see any suggestions to select from. I have feeling that the problem lies in the ArrayAdapter initialization but I cannot figure out what is wrong with it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I have the following code for my multiautocompletetextview:

  <MultiAutoCompleteTextView
     android:id="@+id/mmWhoNo"
     android:layout_width="fill_parent"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     android:textColor="#0000A0"
     android:hint="Choose your Contacts" />

And finally I have the following to read my contacts which i have take from selecting contact from autocomplete textview with a little bit of modification.

private ArrayList<Map<String, String>> mPeopleList;
private ArrayAdapter mAdapter;
private MultiAutoCompleteTextView mTxtPhoneNo;

      mPeopleList = new ArrayList<Map<String, String>>();
      PopulatePeopleList(); 
     mTxtPhoneNo = (MultiAutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.mmWhoNo);
     mTxtPhoneNo.setTokenizer(new MultiAutoCompleteTextView.CommaTokenizer()); 
     mTxtPhoneNo.setThreshold(1);

             //just to check to see that mPeopleList is being populated
     Log.i("Multiplecontacts",mPeopleList.get(0).toString());


     mAdapter = new ArrayAdapter<ArrayList<Map<String,String>>>(this, android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line);
     mAdapter.add(mPeopleList);

     mTxtPhoneNo.setAdapter(mAdapter);

    mTxtPhoneNo
            .setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {

                @Override
                public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> av, View arg1,
                        int index, long arg3) {
                    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                    Map<String, String> map = (Map<String, String>) av
                            .getItemAtPosition(index);

                    String name = map.get("Name");
                    String number = map.get("Phone");
                    mTxtPhoneNo.setText("" + name + "<" + number + ">,");

                }


public void PopulatePeopleList() {
    mPeopleList.clear();
    Cursor people = getContentResolver().query(
            ContactsContract.Contacts.CONTENT_URI, null, null, null, null);
    while (people.moveToNext()) {
        String contactName = people.getString(people
                .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME));
        String contactId = people.getString(people
                .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Contacts._ID));
        String hasPhone = people
                .getString(people
                        .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.Contacts.HAS_PHONE_NUMBER));

        if ((Integer.parseInt(hasPhone) > 0)) {
            // You know have the number so now query it like this
            Cursor phones = getContentResolver().query(
                    ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_URI,
                    null,
                    ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTACT_ID
                            + " = " + contactId, null, null);
            while (phones.moveToNext()) {
                // store numbers and display a dialog letting the user
                // select which.
                String phoneNumber = phones
                        .getString(phones
                                .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.NUMBER));
                String numberType = phones
                        .getString(phones
                                .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.TYPE));
                Map<String, String> NamePhoneType = new HashMap<String, String>();
                NamePhoneType.put("Name", contactName);
                NamePhoneType.put("Phone", phoneNumber);
                if (numberType.equals("0"))
                    NamePhoneType.put("Type", "Work");
                else if (numberType.equals("1"))
                    NamePhoneType.put("Type", "Home");
                else if (numberType.equals("2"))
                    NamePhoneType.put("Type", "Mobile");
                else
                    NamePhoneType.put("Type", "Other");
                // Then add this map to the list.
                mPeopleList.add(NamePhoneType);
            }
            phones.close();
        }
    }
    people.close();
    startManagingCursor(people);
}

            });

Answer 1

The problem you are having is because you are using an ArrayAdaptor. You are giving it a list of Map to choose form but no data on how to filter or compare the map objects to the input text. I used a SimpleAdapter instead and it worked fine.

mTxtPhoneNo = (MultiAutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.multiAutoCompleteTextViewContactsNames);
mAdapter = new SimpleAdapter(this, mPeopleList, R.layout.costom_contact_view, new String[] { "Name", "Phone", "Type" }, new int[] {
                             R.id.ccontName, R.id.ccontNo, R.id.ccontType });
mTxtPhoneNo.setThreshold(1);
mTxtPhoneNo.setAdapter(mAdapter);
mTxtPhoneNo.setTokenizer(new MultiAutoCompleteTextView.CommaTokenizer());
mTxtPhoneNo.setOnItemClickListener(multiAutoContactNamesListener);

Also, in you OnClickListener be sure to concatenate the contacts' names. Change :

mTxtPhoneNo.setText("" + name + "<" + number + ">,");

To:

mTxtPhoneNo.append(", " + name + " <" + number + ">");

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

what i did was that instead of using ArrayList<Map<String, String>> for my ArrayAdapter type, i created a class called ContactsInfo and then created an ArrayAdapter<ContactsInfo>.

And similarly i changed my ArrayList<Map<String, String>> to ArrayList<ContactsInfo> and it worked.

Also you have to overwrite the toString method in your ContactsInfo class.