EditText, clear focus on touch outside

Question

My layout contains ListView, SurfaceView and EditText. When I click on the EditText, it receives focus and the on-screen keyboard pops up. When I click somewhere outside of the EditText, it still has the focus (it shouldn't). I guess I could set up OnTouchListener's on the other views in layout and manually clear the EditText's focus. But seems too hackish...

I also have the same situation in the other layout - list view with different types of items, some of which have EditText's inside. They act just like I wrote above.

The task is to make EditText lose focus when user touches something outside of it.

I've seen similar questions here, but haven't found any solution...

Answer 1

Ken's answer works, but it is hacky. As pcans alludes to in the answer's comment, the same thing could be done with dispatchTouchEvent. This solution is cleaner as it avoids having to hack the XML with a transparent, dummy FrameLayout. Here is what that looks like:

@Override
public boolean dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    EditText mEditText = findViewById(R.id.mEditText);
    if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
        View v = getCurrentFocus();
        if (mEditText.isFocused()) {
            Rect outRect = new Rect();
            mEditText.getGlobalVisibleRect(outRect);
            if (!outRect.contains((int)event.getRawX(), (int)event.getRawY())) {
                mEditText.clearFocus();
                //
                // Hide keyboard
                //
                InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) v.getContext().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE); 
                imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(v.getWindowToken(), 0);
            }
        }
    }
    return super.dispatchTouchEvent(event);
}

Answer 2

This simple snippet of code does what you want

GestureDetector gestureDetector = new GestureDetector(getContext(), new GestureDetector.SimpleOnGestureListener() {
            @Override
            public boolean onSingleTapConfirmed(MotionEvent e) {
                KeyboardUtil.hideKeyboard(getActivity());
                return true;
            }
        });
mScrollView.setOnTouchListener((v, e) -> gestureDetector.onTouchEvent(e));

Answer 3

As @pcans suggested you can do this overriding dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) in your activity.

Here we get the touch coordinates and comparing them to view bounds. If touch is performed outside of a view then do something.

@Override
public boolean dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
        View yourView = (View) findViewById(R.id.view_id);
        if (yourView != null && yourView.getVisibility() == View.VISIBLE) {
            // touch coordinates
            int touchX = (int) event.getX();
            int touchY = (int) event.getY();
            // get your view coordinates
            final int[] viewLocation = new int[2];
            yourView.getLocationOnScreen(viewLocation);

            // The left coordinate of the view
            int viewX1 = viewLocation[0];
            // The right coordinate of the view
            int viewX2 = viewLocation[0] + yourView.getWidth();
            // The top coordinate of the view
            int viewY1 = viewLocation[1];
            // The bottom coordinate of the view
            int viewY2 = viewLocation[1] + yourView.getHeight();

            if (!((touchX >= viewX1 && touchX <= viewX2) && (touchY >= viewY1 && touchY <= viewY2))) {

                Do what you want...

                // If you don't want allow touch outside (for example, only hide keyboard or dismiss popup) 
                return false;
            }
        }
    }
    return super.dispatchTouchEvent(event);
}

Also it's not necessary to check view existance and visibility if your activity's layout doesn't change during runtime (e.g. you don't add fragments or replace/remove views from the layout). But if you want to close (or do something similiar) custom context menu (like in the Google Play Store when using overflow menu of the item) it's necessary to check view existance. Otherwise you will get a NullPointerException.

Answer 4

I tried all these solutions. edc598's was the closest to working, but touch events did not trigger on other Views contained in the layout. In case anyone needs this behavior, this is what I ended up doing:

I created an (invisible) FrameLayout called touchInterceptor as the last View in the layout so that it overlays everything (edit: you also have to use a RelativeLayout as the parent layout and give the touchInterceptor fill_parent attributes). Then I used it to intercept touches and determine if the touch was on top of the EditText or not:

FrameLayout touchInterceptor = (FrameLayout)findViewById(R.id.touchInterceptor);
touchInterceptor.setOnTouchListener(new OnTouchListener() {
    @Override
    public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
        if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
            if (mEditText.isFocused()) {
                Rect outRect = new Rect();
                mEditText.getGlobalVisibleRect(outRect);
                if (!outRect.contains((int)event.getRawX(), (int)event.getRawY())) {
                    mEditText.clearFocus();
                    InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) v.getContext().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE); 
                    imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(v.getWindowToken(), 0);
                }
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
});

Return false to let the touch handling fall through.

It's hacky, but it's the only thing that worked for me.

Answer 5

The best way is use the default method clearFocus()

You know how to solve codes in onTouchListener right?

Just call EditText.clearFocus(). It will clear focus in last EditText.

Answer 6

Building on Ken's answer, here's the most modular copy-and-paste solution.

No XML needed.

Put it in your Activity and it'll apply to all EditTexts including those within fragments within that activity.

@Override
public boolean dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
        View v = getCurrentFocus();
        if ( v instanceof EditText) {
            Rect outRect = new Rect();
            v.getGlobalVisibleRect(outRect);
            if (!outRect.contains((int)event.getRawX(), (int)event.getRawY())) {
                v.clearFocus();
                InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
                imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(v.getWindowToken(), 0);
            }
        }
    }
    return super.dispatchTouchEvent( event );
}