Android how to focus ActionBar searchView

Try using searchView.setIconified(false). This worked for me:

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
    ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
    SearchView searchView = new SearchView(this);
    actionBar.setCustomView(searchView);
    actionBar.setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM);
    searchView.setQuery("test",true);
    searchView.setFocusable(true);
    searchView.setIconified(false);
    searchView.requestFocusFromTouch();
}

Here is another solution.

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
    MenuItem menu_search = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search);


    menu_search.setOnActionExpandListener(new OnActionExpandListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onMenuItemActionCollapse(MenuItem item) {
            // Do something when collapsed
            return true;  // Return true to collapse action view
        }

        @Override
        public boolean onMenuItemActionExpand(MenuItem item) {
            //get focus
            item.getActionView().requestFocus();
            //get input method
            InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
            imm.toggleSoftInput(0, InputMethodManager.HIDE_NOT_ALWAYS);
            return true;  // Return true to expand action view
        }
    });
    return true;
}

This works for me:

        @Override
        public boolean onMenuItemActionExpand(MenuItem item)
        {
            if (sm.isMenuShowing()) {
                sm.toggle();
            }
            searchView.setIconified(true);
            KeyEvent event = new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN, 32);
            searchView.onKeyDown(32, event);
            return true;
        }

For me the following works:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    ...
    MenuItem miSearch = menu.findItem(R.id.menu_search);
    SearchView mSearchView = (SearchView) miSearch.getActionView();

    mSearchView.setOnSearchClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            mSearchView.setFocusable(true);
            mSearchView.requestFocusFromTouch();
        }
    });

I use android.support.v7.widget.SearchView. When tried to set mSearchView.setIconified(false); it entered into an infinite loop.