Forcing the Soft Keyboard open

Question

I am trying to force the Soft Keyboard open in an Activity and grab everything that is entered as I want to handle the input myself, I don't have an EditText. Currently I have tried this but it does not work. I would like the Soft Keyboardto open below mAnswerTextView (Note: it is a TextView not EditText).

    InputMethodManager mgr = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);     // only will trigger it if no physical keyboard is open     mgr.showSoftInput(mAnswerTextView, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT); 

1. how do I force the Soft Keyboard open
2. How do I gab everything that is entered so that I can handle each character. I would like to flush each character from the Soft Keyboard after I have handled it. ie, the user should not be able to enter whole words in the Soft Keyboard.

Answer 1

try this to force open soft keyboard:

((InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE)).toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED, InputMethodManager.HIDE_IMPLICIT_ONLY); 

then you can to use this code to close the keyboard:

((InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE)).hideSoftInputFromWindow(_pay_box_helper.getWindowToken(), 0);