Change appcompat's SearchView text and hint color

Question

Does anybody know how to change the text color of the appcompat SearchView? I've spent 2 hours and tried several suggestions from SO and none works.

Here is my code:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:espacios="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >

    <item
        android:id="@+id/layer_switcher_button"
        android:icon="@drawable/b_categorias"
        android:title="@string/menu_layer_switcher_title"
        espacios:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"/>
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_search"
        android:icon="@drawable/b_buscar"
        android:title="@string/menu_search_title"
        espacios:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView"
        espacios:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"/>

</menu>

And in my activity I have this:

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);

    menuItem layerSwitcher = menu.findItem(R.id.layer_switcher_button);
    layerSwitcher.setOnMenuItemClickListener(new OnMenuItemClickListener() {

        @Override
        public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
        onLayerSwitcherButtonClicked();
            return false;
        }
    });

    MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
    SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);

    LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) searchView.getChildAt(0);
    TextView textView = (TextView) ll.getChildAt(0);

    textView.setTextColor(R.color.white);
}

Answer 1

SearchView searchView = new SearchView(getContext());
SearchView.SearchAutoComplete theTextArea = (SearchView.SearchAutoComplete)searchView.findViewById(R.id.search_src_text);
theTextArea.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);//or any color that you want