Android – set a focus and show soft keyboard experiments

Today I was playing with virtual keyboard and setting focus on a control (only with EditText for moment).  Here follows a short recap of my findings.

To force focus via layout:

<EditText android:id="@+id/event_title_textbox"

    android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"

    android:hint="@string/event_title_hint">

    <requestFocus />

</EditText>

To focus programmatically:

...

titleTextBox = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.event_title_textbox);

titleTextBox.requestFocus();

...

To cause a virtual keyboard to be shown on focus (source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2403632/android-show-soft-keyboard-automatically-when-focus-is-on-an-edittext). Make sure to clear that requestFocus element used in the layout above, as otherwise it will not show unless it looses focus and gains it again.

titleTextBox.setOnFocusChangeListener(new View.OnFocusChangeListener() {

    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {

        if (hasFocus) {

            parentActivity

                    .getWindow()

                    .setSoftInputMode(

                            WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);

        }

    }

});

titleTextBox.requestFocus();

Another way to setup a keyboard to appear is through the manifest:

...

<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">

    <activity android:name=".Main"

              android:label="@string/app_name"

              android:windowSoftInputMode="stateVisible"

              >

...

When experimenting I was not actually getting what I wanted until I realized I should have an emulator device with no hardware keyboard:

This is it for my discoveries. Happy coding to You!