Question

what I’d like to do is draw an image into the AutoCompleteTextView widget.

after some research at:
http://www.droidnova.com/playing-with-graphics-in-android-part-i,147.html
and
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/NotePad/src/com/example/android/notepad/NoteEditor.html

I’ve put the following class together …

public class myAutoCompleteTextView extends AutoCompleteTextView
{
    //member variables
    private Rect mRect;
    private Paint mPaint;


    /**
     * Constructors used by LayoutInflater
     */
    public myAutoCompleteTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
        mRect = new Rect();
        mPaint = new Paint();
    }

    public myAutoCompleteTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(context, attrs);
        mRect = new Rect();
        mPaint = new Paint();
    }

    public myAutoCompleteTextView(Context context)
    {
        super(context);
        mRect = new Rect();
        mPaint = new Paint();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas)
    {

        Bitmap _scratch = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.search);

        //canvas.drawBitmap(_scratch, 0.0f, 0.0f, mPaint);
        canvas.drawBitmap(_scratch, 0.0f, 0.0f, null);

        // Finishes up by calling the parent method
        super.onDraw(canvas);

        //this.invalidate();
    }

}

and the XML layout…

    <com.test.customcontrols.myAutoCompleteTextView
    android:id="@+id/myautocomplete"
    android:layout_width="200dip"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="20dip"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:inputType="textCapWords|textNoSuggestions|textVisiblePassword"/>

unfortunately, the AutoCompleteTextView appears seemingly untouched.
What shall I do to have my image incorporated onto the widgets’ usual background ?

Answer 1

making custom components will take a bit of detailed study… in the meantime I solved it with:

AutoCompleteTextView mAutoCompleteTextView;
mAutoCompleteTextView = (AutoCompleteTextView) findViewById(R.id.myautocomplete);
mAutoCompleteTextView.setCompoundDrawablesWithIntrinsicBounds(getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.myimage), null, null, null);