How to clear focus for EditText?

Question

I have an activity with a search box (EditText) on the top, and a ListView below. Whenever the activity starts, the EditText always has focus and bring up the keyboard which partially cover the ListView.

There's no other text view that can have focus. I want the EditText to have focus ONLY when the user touches it and start typing. I try to put clearFocus() in onCreateView, onViewCreated or onCreated, but no luck.

Answer 1

Set in your parent layout next attributes:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/mainLayout"
    android:descendantFocusability="beforeDescendants"
    android:focusableInTouchMode="true" >

And now, when activity starts this layout getting default focus.

Also we can remove focus from children views in runtime (e.g. after finishing child editing):

findViewById(R.id.mainLayout).requestFocus();

or

Look in the AndroidManifest.xml element.

android:windowSoftInputMode="stateHidden"

It always hide key board when entering the activity.

Answer 2

You could use set focus on container view. Add to container android:focusableInTouchMode="true", android:focusable="true" and tag requestFocus example:

<RelativeLayout
    android:id="@+id/container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
    android:focusable="true">
    <requestFocus/>

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/edit_text_id"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
</RelativeLayout>