How can I implement special soft keyboard

Question

I want to make special soft keyboard to use it in my android app like the following

I worked on the software keyboard sample and I edited the qwerty.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
/* 
**
** Copyright 2008, The Android Open Source Project
**
** Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 
** you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 
** You may obtain a copy of the License at 
**
**     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 
**
** Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 
** distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 
** WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 
** See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 
** limitations under the License.
*/
-->

<Keyboard xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:keyWidth="10%p"
    android:horizontalGap="0px"
    android:verticalGap="0px"
    android:keyHeight="6%p"
    >


     <Row   android:keyWidth="18%p">
        <Key android:codes="49" android:keyLabel="1" android:keyEdgeFlags="left"/>
        <Key android:codes="50" android:keyLabel="2"/>
        <Key android:codes="51" android:keyLabel="3"/>
        <Key android:codes="52" android:keyLabel="4"/>
        <Key android:codes="53" android:keyLabel="5"/>
        <Key android:codes="54" android:keyLabel="6"/>
        <Key android:codes="55" android:keyLabel="7"/>
        <Key android:codes="56" android:keyLabel="8"/>
        <Key android:codes="57" android:keyLabel="9"/>
        <Key android:codes="48" android:keyLabel="0" android:keyEdgeFlags="right"/>
        <Key android:codes="-5" android:keyIcon="@drawable/sym_keyboard_delete" 
                android:keyWidth="15%p" android:keyEdgeFlags="right"
                android:isRepeatable="true"/>
    </Row>
    <Row   >
        <Key android:codes="113" android:keyLabel="Q" android:keyEdgeFlags="left"/>
        <Key android:codes="119" android:keyLabel="W"/>
        <Key android:codes="101" android:keyLabel="E"/>
        <Key android:codes="114" android:keyLabel="R"/>
        <Key android:codes="116" android:keyLabel="T"/>
        <Key android:codes="121" android:keyLabel="Y"/>
        <Key android:codes="117" android:keyLabel="U"/>
        <Key android:codes="105" android:keyLabel="I"/>
        <Key android:codes="111" android:keyLabel="O"/>
        <Key android:codes="112" android:keyLabel="P" android:keyEdgeFlags="right"/>
    </Row>

    <Row    >
        <Key android:codes="97" android:keyLabel="A" android:horizontalGap="5%p" 
                android:keyEdgeFlags="left"/>
        <Key android:codes="115" android:keyLabel="S"/>
        <Key android:codes="100" android:keyLabel="D"/>
        <Key android:codes="102" android:keyLabel="F"/>
        <Key android:codes="103" android:keyLabel="G"/>
        <Key android:codes="104" android:keyLabel="H"/>
        <Key android:codes="106" android:keyLabel="J"/>
        <Key android:codes="107" android:keyLabel="K"/>
        <Key android:codes="108" android:keyLabel="L" android:keyEdgeFlags="right"/>
    </Row>

    <Row    android:keyHeight="8%p">

        <Key android:codes="122" android:keyLabel="Z"/>
        <Key android:codes="120" android:keyLabel="X"/>
        <Key android:codes="99" android:keyLabel="C"/>
        <Key android:codes="118" android:keyLabel="V"/>
        <Key android:codes="98" android:keyLabel="B"/>
        <Key android:codes="110" android:keyLabel="N"/>
        <Key android:codes="109" android:keyLabel="M"/>
        <Key android:codes="46" android:keyLabel="."
              />
        <Key android:codes="32" android:keyLabel="SPACE"
                android:keyWidth="20%p" android:isRepeatable="true"/>
         <Key android:codes="10" android:keyIcon="@drawable/sym_keyboard_return" 
                android:keyWidth="20%p" android:keyEdgeFlags="right"/>

    </Row>


</Keyboard>

and I get the following

disregard the first row , how can I make the keyboard button background like the first photo I mean I want to make my keyboard like the first one with all details ? How can I add Gmail , Hotmail , ... to the fist row of my keyboard ? I also want to add a sound when the user click on any key like the default android keyboard how can I do that ?

Answer 1

Create XML like this for keyboard :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<com.YourKeyboardView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/keyboard"
    style="@style/keyboard_1_style"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" >

</com.YourKeyboardView>

And style is as below:

 <style name="keyboard_1_style">
        <item name="android:keyBackground">@drawable/k1_selector</item>
        <item name="android:keyTextColor">#24B2E7</item>
        <item name="android:background">@android:color/white</item>
        <item name="android:keyPreviewLayout">@layout/k1_preview</item>
 </style>

In which

<item name="android:keyBackground">@drawable/k1_selector</item>

is used to set background for key.

<item name="android:keyTextColor">#24B2E7</item> 

is used for text color of key.

<item name="android:background">@android:color/white</item> 

is used to set background of entire keyboard and

<item name="android:keyPreviewLayout">@layout/k1_preview</item>

is uesd to set preview of key.

Preview layout xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="40sp"
    android:textColor="@android:color/white"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:background="@drawable/neon_candidate_middle_pressed"/>

For spaces between keys use this.

And for android:background="@drawable/neon_candidate_middle_pressed" it is background image which you want to show in preview of key.