How to show soft-keyboard when edittext is focused

Question

I want to automatically show the soft-keyboard when an EditText is focused (if the device does not have a physical keyboard) and I have two problems:

1. When my Activity is displayed, my EditText is focused but the keyboard is not displayed, I need to click again on it to show the keyboard (it should be displayed when my Activity is displayed).

2. And when I click done on the keyboard, the keyboard is dissmissed but the EditText stays focused and y don't want (because my edit is done).

To resume, my problem is to have something more like on the iPhone: which keep the keyboard sync with my EditText state (focused / not focused) and of course does not present a soft-keyboard if there is a physical one.

Answer 1

Inside your manifest:

android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysVisible" - initially launched keyboard. android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden" - initially hidden keyboard.

I like to use also "adjustPan" because when the keyboard launches then the screen auto adjusts.

 <activity
      android:name="YourActivity"
      android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden|adjustPan"/>

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Immediately after editText VISIBILITY change from GONE to VISIBLE, I had to set the focus and display the soft keyboard. I achieved this using the following code:

new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable() {

    public void run() {
//        ((EditText) findViewById(R.id.et_find)).requestFocus();
//              
        EditText yourEditText= (EditText) findViewById(R.id.et_find);
//        InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
//        imm.showSoftInput(yourEditText, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);

        yourEditText.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent.obtain(SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN , 0, 0, 0));
        yourEditText.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent.obtain(SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), MotionEvent.ACTION_UP , 0, 0, 0));                           
    }
}, 200);

It works for me with 100ms delay, but failed without any delay or with only a delay of 1ms.

Commented part of code shows another approach, which works only on some devices. I tested on OS versions 2.2 (emulator), 2.2.1 (real device) and 1.6 (emulator).

This approach saved me a lot of pain.

Answer 3

I discovered a strange behaviour, since in one of my apps, the soft keyboard was automatically showing on entering the activity (there is an editText.requestFocus() in onCreate).

On digging further, I discovered that this was because there is a ScrollView around the layout. If I remove the ScrollView, the behaviour is as described in the original problem statement: only on clicking the already focused editText does the soft keyboard show up.

If it doesn't work for you, try putting in a ScrollView -- it's harmless anyway.

Answer 4

Using Xamarin, this works for me inside a Fragment:

using Android.Views.InputMethods;
using Android.Content;

...

if ( _txtSearch.RequestFocus() ) {
  var inputManager = (InputMethodManager) Activity.GetSystemService( Context.InputMethodService );
  inputManager.ShowSoftInput( _txtSearch, ShowFlags.Implicit );
}

Answer 5

I am agree with raukodraug therefor using in a swithview you must request/clear focus like this :

    final ViewSwitcher viewSwitcher = (ViewSwitcher) findViewById(R.id.viewSwitcher);
    final View btn = viewSwitcher.findViewById(R.id.address_btn);
    final View title = viewSwitcher.findViewById(R.id.address_value);

    title.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            viewSwitcher.showPrevious();
            btn.requestFocus();
            InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
            imm.showSoftInput(btn, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);
        }
    });

    // EditText affiche le titre evenement click
    btn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            btn.clearFocus();
            viewSwitcher.showNext();
            InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
            imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(btn.getWindowToken(), 0);
            // Enregistre l'adresse.
            addAddress(view);
        }
    });

Regards.

Answer 6

To force the soft keyboard to appear, you can use

EditText yourEditText= (EditText) findViewById(R.id.yourEditText);
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.showSoftInput(yourEditText, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);

And for removing the focus on EditText, sadly you need to have a dummy View to grab focus.

I hope this helps

---

To close it you can use

InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(yourEditText.getWindowToken(), 0);

---

This works for using it in a dialog

public void showKeyboard(){
    InputMethodManager inputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    inputMethodManager.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED, 0);
}

public void closeKeyboard(){
    InputMethodManager inputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    inputMethodManager.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.HIDE_IMPLICIT_ONLY, 0);
}