how can my android app programmatically display the keyboard

Question

Is there any way to programmatically tell android to open the keyboard when the focus is obtained by an EditText?

Also is there any way to tell it to open the numeric keyboard?

Thanks Victor

Answer 1

To pop up a numeric keyboard on start of the activity you can follow these steps:

Created edit text field in layout as: ( Not needed if you want a qwerty keyboard )

 <EditText
        ...
        android:inputType="number"    
        ...  />

In function onCreate() show soft keyboard

InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED,0);

Most important is to give focus to edit text in onResume method.

    @Override
    public void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
        editText.requestFocus();
    }

Answer 2

to make it numeric, use this

text.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_NUMBER);

and as far as I know, the keyboard will pop up when needed automatically

Answer 3

To show the keyboard:

InputMethodManager inputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
inputMethodManager.showSoftInput(viewToEdit, 0);

To hide the keyboard:

if (getCurrentFocus() != null) {
    inputMethodManager.hideSoftInputFromWindow(getCurrentFocus().getApplicationWindowToken(), 0);
}