Is it possible to force softkeyboard to show without edittext?

Question

It works fine if I have EditText visible, but once I set its visibilty to GONE or INVISIBLE, the keyboard doesnt show up anymore, eventhough I have edittext declared in main.xml. So is it even possible to show keyboard w/o edittext?

Answer 1

You can force the Softkeyboard to without edittext as:

InputMethodManager im = (InputMethodManager)getContext().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
im.showSoftInput(myView, InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED);

Answer 2

Here you go:

InputMethodManager inputMngr = (InputMethodManager)context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
inputMngr.showSoftInputFromInputMethod(windowToken, flags)

You can get window token on any View by calling view.getWindowToken() . Flags can be found in INputMethodManager.

Warning: you must close the keyboard yourself when you're done taking input by calling inputMngr.hideSoftInputFromWindow(windowToken, flags) .

Answer 3

Note that if you are working in landscape mode, the soft input will create its own text input field ruining all your hard work. You can prevent this behavior:

// This makes us remain invisible when in landscape mode.
setImeOptions(EditorInfo.IME_FLAG_NO_EXTRACT_UI);

Now if you have set up an invisible EditText it will remain as you made it.