At times When app screen starts, we may need to show Soft keyboard Popup for the EditText, which is having focus. So user don’t need to touch on the EditText to show keyboard.

To show keyboard for EditText view when Activity starts. We can just implement in XML design file in EditText tag by using <requestFocus />. see below

<EditText
android:id="@+id/password"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:maxLength="15">
<requestFocus/>
</EditText>

But the above XML code not works when using in Fragment, to show keyboard when Fragment screen starts.

Solution to show soft keyboard

We need to handle in code to force show keyboard. Following code works fine..

/**
* TODO showInputMethod
*/
public void showInputMethod() {
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED,InputMethodManager.HIDE_IMPLICIT_ONLY);
}

Call this method in Fragment OnCreateView(…). Now It will show the softkeyboard.

And You can hide the Softkeyboard, when user touched on any other place than the EditText in Activity screen, using following code (place this code in Activity)

  /* (non-Javadoc)
* @see android.app.Activity#dispatchTouchEvent(android.view.MotionEvent)
*/
  @Override
  public boolean dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
      View v = getCurrentFocus();
      boolean ret = super.dispatchTouchEvent(event);
      if (this instanceof SkylineMessagesActivityAdv) {
          return false;
      }
      if (v instanceof EditText) {
          View w = getCurrentFocus();
          int scrCoords[] = new int[2];
          w.getLocationOnScreen(scrCoords);
          float x = event.getRawX() + w.getLeft() - scrCoords[0];
          float y = event.getRawY() + w.getTop() - scrCoords[1];
          if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP && (x < w.getLeft() || x >= w.getRight() || y < w.getTop() || y > w.getBottom())) {
              InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
              imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(getWindow().getCurrentFocus().getWindowToken(), 0);
          }
      }
      return ret;
  }

Hope it helps somebody..

Cheers 🙂

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