Simulating Keyboard Events in Android

Question

I have a project and I am trying to fire Keyboard events. I am using the Instrumentation Class, and it is working perfectly on the emulator, but when I launch it on my device, the call doesn't work, is there any way to make it work?

Also, I searched on the web, and I found some posts about the IWindowManager and the internal APIs, I fully understand the risk of using them, but my project is a research and is not intended to be published, so I don't mind using those APIs in my porject if they can solve my problem, but the problem is that I can't find the JAR that contains these classes.

TLDR : I need a solution that helps me fire keyboard events on my Android device, any ideas are appreciated

Answer 1

Actually, there is an easier method, that I found Using Activity class or WebView class. Both have the same function. The code looks something like this:

webView.dispatchKeyEvent(new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN,KeyEvent.KEYCODE_1));

Answer 2

In instrumentation, there is the api to send keycode:

getInstrumentation().sendCharacterSync(int keycode);

If you have root access to the device, you can check the code here:

https://code.google.com/p/androidscreencast/source/browse/AndroidScreencastClient/src/net/srcz/android/screencast/client/ClientHandler.java ;

to use IWindowManager. The IWindowManager is apart of android system, you can find the class in android.jar, the source code can be downloaded from android official website.