Android Example ContactSearcher - Combines ContactsUtils with SearchView

This example uses SearchView to allow the user to search for any contact. The user can enter a substring of the contact name or one of his phone numbers.

This is a modified version of SearchView. Unlike the standard SearchView this version allows us to use different text for searching. The item itself can be any type of object.

Note that the phone number "search text" is stripped from any non-digits characters. In this implementation the query text (the user input) is not stripped, the user is expected to enter the digits only (or the contact's name).

 

[HCAZ]

Great work, thanks Erel!

 

[Erel]

@HCAZ thank you Note that to keep the forum more "clean" it is better to use the 'Like' link (right side of each post). In the future it will also help the search engine.

 

[bsnqt]

Excellent example with SearchView and ContactUtils, thanks Erel... I will have to learn a lot from this.

Just a quick question... In your example, once the list of Contacts is built, you can re-use the index but in reality the Contacts list is something "dynamic" (user can edit, modify individual contact at any time...) so we need to rebuild the index every time we need to search? It is okay but in my case if I do a call blocker APK, the index rebuilding process will take some times ... while the blocker should act very quickly.

Appreciate your help.

 

[Erel]

You do not need to rebuild the index for every search. In this implementation the index is stored in memory, which means that it will be kept as long as the process lives. Probably no more than a hour or two.
Do not build the index every time that Activity_Create is called. It will be called every time that the user changes the orientation.

You can track the index time and recreate it after x hours / minutes.

 

[bsnqt]

Thank you very much Erel. Let me play a little bit with the example and will revert later if any question.

 

[bsnqt]

Dear Erel,

Please don't wrongly think that I want to compare things together . I just simply want and am trying to learn B4A from you, and here I believe I missed something important. I want to understand better the background of ContactUtils and ContentResolver.

Attached is my demo app where you can load the contacts list to a listview by (1) using ContactUtils library (button1); or (2) by using an Eclipse-built Java library (button2). The codes from where I made the library is given below, I also attached the library as well. If you run the demo, you can see that the loading speed using button 2 (Java library) is much faster than using ContactUtils.

1) Why we still load the Contacts very slowly, using the ContactUtils Library (in your sample app, I can see it loads very quickly). What is wrong with my B4A codes?

2) After loading, the ContactUtils give me only 706 contacts, while the Java library gave me 738 contacts, why it is so different?

Thank you very much. Please help me.

public List GetAllContacts(){
        ArrayList<String> al = new ArrayList<String>();
        List list = new List();
        list.Initialize();
        String key;
    
        Cursor phones =  BA.applicationContext.getApplicationContext().getContentResolver().query(
                ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.CONTENT_URI,null,null,null,null);
        while (phones.moveToNext()) {
            String Name = phones
                    .getString(phones
                            .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.DISPLAY_NAME));
            String Number = phones
                    .getString(phones
                            .getColumnIndex(ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.NUMBER));

            key = Name + "\n" + Number;
                  
            al.add(key);
        }
        phones.close();
        list.setObject((java.util.ArrayList)al);
        return list;
    
    }

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Contacts is a complex data structure in Android.
You can read all about them in this guide: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/contacts-provider.html
Sometimes you need multiple queries to gather all the information on contacts (email/phones) so it is slower when you do that.

 

[bsnqt]

@thedesolatesould: You are correct, that is very true. Thank you very much for the link and your comment.

My 1st question, however, was just how to simply retrieve the display name and the phone number, so I wonder how to optimize my code in B4A to get it loaded faster to achieve my need. Surely if we want to get photo, email then things are differently (may need more time to load)...

Second question was related to the fact that why the number of contacts retrieved is different from the 2 methods, while I expect it would be the same. I think it may be related to the variables when we make the contacts query (Exact As Boolean, VisibleOnly As Boolean...etc in ContactUtils Class).

Best regards

 

[Erel]

You can easily convert this Java code to B4A with the ContentResolver library. The difference in the number is most probably because you are not fetching the contacts from the main table and therefore it includes duplicates (multiple contacts that are joined).

Getting ALL the phone numbers of each contact requires an additional query. If you omit the call to GetPhones then it will be much faster.

Edit: This question in not related to this thread topic. For further discussions (if needed) please start a new thread.

 

[bsnqt]

Hi Erel, thank you very much. After playing with this ContactUtils plus your guide, I understand many things. Thanks so much.

 

[Silver Chi]

Hi..

sorry for my stupid question, i'm a newbie for android,
i try to learn your example code, but when i try to run it, the compiler show this error :

"
Parsing code. Error
Error parsing program.
Error description: Unknown type: contentresolver
Are you missing a library reference?
Occurred on line: 8
Private cr As ContentResolver
"

what should i do to fix it? thank you..

 

[Erel]

You can find the library here: http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/pages/results/?query=ContentResolver&page=1

Though it is only available to licensed users.

 

[derez]

Erel
The example runs fine on lower versions of android, but on 4.4.2 nexus 5 it just does not install without any error report.

 

[Erel]

Works here with Nexus 4 running Android 4.4.2. If it doesn't install at all then the problem is somewhere else.

How are you connected to the device? Have you checked the unfiltered logs?

 

[derez]

I'm using bridge on wifi, legacy debug.

** Activity (main) Resume **
Setting install_non_market_apps has moved from android.provider.Settings.Secure to android.provider.Settings.Global.
** Service (service1) Destroy **
** Service (service1) Create **
** Service (service1) Start **
Connected to B4A-Bridge (Wifi)
GC_CONCURRENT freed 240K, 3% free 17359K/17744K, paused 2ms+3ms, total 39ms
Installing file.
** Activity (main) Pause, UserClosed = false **
Installing file.
GC_CONCURRENT freed 683K, 5% free 17067K/17900K, paused 9ms+1ms, total 46ms
WAIT_FOR_CONCURRENT_GC blocked 23ms
** Activity (main) Resume **
Setting install_non_market_apps has moved from android.provider.Settings.Secure to android.provider.Settings.Global.
Installing file.
** Activity (main) Pause, UserClosed = false **
** Activity (main) Resume **
Setting install_non_market_apps has moved from android.provider.Settings.Secure to android.provider.Settings.Global.
Installing file.
GC_CONCURRENT freed 388K, 5% free 17065K/17900K, paused 3ms+2ms, total 12ms
** Activity (main) Pause, UserClosed = false **
** Activity (main) Resume **
Setting install_non_market_apps has moved from android.provider.Settings.Secure to android.provider.Settings.Global.
** Activity (main) Pause, UserClosed = true **

 

[Erel]

This issue is not related to ContactSearcher.

Make sure that there isn't a previous app with the same package name and different sign key.

 

[derez]

I changed package name and it installs

 

[air cover]

I used a slightly different approach, but it is rather fast executing. Erel's earlier contactutils example loaded your phone contacts into a listview (here named ContactListView). I added an EditText box onto the layout named SearchContacts.

Then this simple subroutine allowed near instant contact searches:

Sub SearchContacts_TextChanged (Old As String, New As String)
Dim temp As String
Dim allContacts As List = cu.FindAllContacts(True)

allContacts.SortType("DisplayName", True )
ContactListview.Clear

    For Each c As cuContact In cu.FindAllContacts(True) 'Load phone contacts into listbox
        temp=c.DisplayName
        If temp.Contains(New) OR New="" Then
            ContactListview.AddSingleLine2(c.DisplayName, c)
        End If
    Next
End Sub

 

[AlbertMHaim]

This example uses SearchView to allow the user to search for any contact. The user can enter a substring of the contact name or one of his phone numbers.

This is a modified version of SearchView. Unlike the standard SearchView this version allows us to use different text for searching. The item itself can be any type of object.

Note that the phone number "search text" is stripped from any non-digits characters. In this implementation the query text (the user input) is not stripped, the user is expected to enter the digits only (or the contact's name).

What is the code to view it fullscreen? It only uses half of the screen?