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

To force the soft keyboard to appear, you can use

EditText yourEditText= (EditText) findViewById(R.id.yourEditText);
yourEditText.requestFocus();
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.

---

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);
}

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, 0f, 0f, 0));
        yourEditText.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent.obtain(SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), MotionEvent.ACTION_UP, 0f, 0f, 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

To cause the keyboard to appear, use

getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_VISIBLE);

This method is more reliable than invoking the InputMethodManager directly.

To close it, use

getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_HIDDEN);