Hint in Search Widget within Action Bar is not showing up

For some reason you need to put <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH"/> inside your tag. That's what fixed the problem for me.But be careful to put it in this order

<intent-filter>       <action android:name="android.intent.action.SEARCH"/>       <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />       <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /></intent-filter>

otherwise your activity won't be recognized as launcher

No one has been able to answer my question yet...

I have found a way to change the hint value in the .java file but not in the .xml file.

Within the onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) method of MainActivity.java, I can do:

searchView.setQueryHint("HINT TEXT...");

I believe I should still be able to preset a hint value of a SearchWidget in XML just like a simple EditText.

Your have to provide a string resource for the hint attribute. Hardcoded text won't work. Instead of

android:hint="search"

use a string resource

android:hint="@string/search_hint"

The doc is clear about it: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/search/searchable-config.html

android:hint="string resource"