I have an external keyboard connected to a tablet which runs an app. I would like to disable any inputs other than letters, space and some special marks. The keyboard has little knobs which control the volume which I would also like to disable. Or things like ALT-F4 which seems to activate some internet mode, open the browser, etc.
I tried disabling hotkeys in Android but could not find out where.
I tried filtering out all unwanted inputs in the app itself with the "onKeyUp" function but not all keys seem to register (e.g. multimedia keys)
Is this something that has to be configured in Android? Or coded in Kotlin?
Cheerio!
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Thanks in advance for the help.
I am developing an android application for research purposes and need to disable the speech to text button on the soft input keyboard. The reason for this is due to concurrency issues that arise since the application I am developing uses the microphone. I understand that for a general application disabling keys is generally seen as impossible (since users may change default keyboards). I know for a fact that the default keyboard will be used.
With this in mind is it possible to disable certain keys? I believe that at the least I should be able to specify the input type such that the microphone button is hidden. I say this because if I disable speech to text in the settings (not programmatically, but manually as a user) the microphone icon is removed from the keyboard. I'm open to any possible solution (with the exception of not using the default keyboard) as this application will not appear on the play store.
You can't force the user input through anything other than pre-defined keyboards that already exist in the user's device.
The only way you could get around this is by programming your own custom, on-the-fly keyboard, and that is a very bad idea.
Just disable voice input programmatically by using XML declarations in the EditText you're looking at. You can do this with the attribute:
android:privateImeOptions="nm" // nm stands for No Microphone.
If you want to set it programmatically you can try this::
// deprecated i guess
edt_txt.setPrivateImeOptions("nm");
// this one is new but it works only with Google Keyboard.
edt_txt.setPrivateImeOptions("com.google.android.inputmethod.latin.noMicrophoneKey");
You can combine values in PrivateImeOptions parameter in CVS form so best option is to use:
edt_txt.setPrivateImeOptions("nm,com.google.android.inputmethod.latin.noMicrophoneKey");
Take a look through here and see if you can find what you're looking for.
More info about Google Keyboard here -> look for method setOptions
To disable microphone button on multiple keyboard. Use property
android:privateImeOptions="nm"
But it will not work for Gboard(google native keyboard)
To disable on microphone on Gboard use
android:privateImeOptions="nm"
editText.setImeOptions(IME_FLAG_NO_PERSONALIZED_LEARNING)
Just use this in your editText on the layout file:
android:imeOptions="flagNoPersonalizedLearning"
I want to make an application to automatically change my mobile keyboard according to application. My mobile default keyboard will change according to application, such as:
I want to use "Ridmik Keyboard" with Facebook or want to use "Swift keyboard" with Google play. Is it possible ?
I'm pretty sure that it's not possible. The only way you can change the keyboard is by asking the user to do so from the device's settings. Automatically changing the keyboard would be a major security hole, as a malicious keyboard could track passwords, for example.
Alternatively, you could ask the user to select a keyboard by calling startActivity(new Intent(android.provider.Settings.ACTION_INPUT_METHOD_SETTINGS));, and you can detect when a certain application is launched by sniffing into the LogCat.
If you are willing to root your device there are at least two solutions in the Google Play store that claim to do what you want: Keyboard Manager and Keyboard Master.
For non-rooted devices, there is Keyboard Manager Plus - however you should be aware that it flashes the keyboard picker on the screen as it automatically changes the keyboard. If you can live with that, that's a possible solution for you without rooting.
Caveat: I have not tried these myself. I am researching the issue and I do not have the option of rooting the device and I cannot live with the flashing. However, I've taken a pretty close look at all three of the above and they are the closest I've found to answering your question.
I am currently working on an app that simulates the d-pad (up, down, left, and right). The problem is that I can't figure out how to send those key presses to other applications.
Currently, I am using Instrumentation and it works perfectly fine in the activity of my app.
Here is the snippet of the arrow key left code:
new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
new Instrumentation().sendKeyDownUpSync(KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_LEFT);
}
}).start();
The problem with this implementation is that due to an android security feature, I cannot send key presses to other applications.
After searching up different ways to injecting key presses, I came across this article. However, after trying the example code, it doesn't seem to work. I poked around and found out that android doesn't seem to have an input device for the keyboard. When I scan for different input devices, I get stuff such as orientation sensor and etc. Here is a pic of all the input devices on my phone (T-959 Galaxy S).
As you can see, none of these devices is a keyboard. I have a feeling that this is because my phone does not have a physical keyboard. (cypress is the capacitive keys, aries is the volume buttons, and mxt224 is the touchscreen controller)
After a bit more of research, I found that the accessibility api in android has limit capabilities for injecting events, but those are only very basic things such as switching view focus and etc (AccessibilityNodeInfo). However, I have a feeling that I might be able to extend it to support arrow key presses.
So currently, I am very confused on where to go. Has anyone ever done anything like this before? It seems that the simple injection of arrow keys (nothing else) is very frustrating due to the security features in Android. All suggestions are welcomed.
EDIT: I might not have been very clear, but I am fine with building this for rooted phones only. Only requirement is that this app has to run standalone on the phone without being hooked up to any external keyboards via otg or the computer via adb.
I wanted to simulate DPAD key press events few days back and I did find a solution which has its own limitation.
Arrow key press can be simulated using adb commandinput keyevent <keycode>.
So if you want to simulate a DPAD LEFT key press then use the adb commandadb input keyevent 21.
To reuse this bit of code and scale it forward, I created a standalone swing application where i select the device to which i need to send the key events and I can use the existing keyboard of my computer to type in the keys.[I map the keyboard key codes to android key codes].
I am further scaling the application by including remote and game pad buttons, once done, i'll upload the project on git.
Hope this helps.
IF you intention is to create an application that works on non rooted phones perhaps your best bet is to implement a new InputMethod using http://developer.android.com/reference/android/inputmethodservice/InputMethodService.html
I have an Android device into which a gamepad can be connected (it's a totally standard XBox 360 controller, but I need to support other varieties as well). The gamepad is showing up as a InputDevice with some analogue axes and some buttons.
I need to be able to query Android to find out what buttons the gamepad supports. Does anyone know how to do this?
I know that the system has this information, because if I write a command-line app which opens /dev/input/event... and queries the buttons using the EVIOCGBIT ioctl, I get a nice list of supported buttons from the kernel. But I can't do this from an Android application because I don't have permission to access the input devices directly.
It looks like it should be possible to get the InputDevice's KeyCharacterMap object and query that; but it looks like Android has attached the default QWERTY keyboard keymap to the gamepad, rather than constructing one that actually matches what the gamepad supports. This will happily tell me that the gamepad has a Q key, which it doesn't, and that it doesn't have a BUTTON_X key, which it does, and for which I am receiving key events. So that's not helping.
Is there any way to do this?
I haven't figured out a way yet, but I have found a horrible workaround.
If you call KeyCharacterMap.deviceHasKey(keycode), I can ask Android if any input device on the system supports the specified keycode. By iterating through all possible buttons that can occur on a gamepad (usefully, they're all called KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BUTTON_something), I can figure out that any connected gamepad must support at least some of these buttons.
It's not a very nice solution --- if I have an XBox 360 controller and a Wiimote connected at the same time, then I can't figure out that the XBox controller does not have buttons 1 or 2, and the Wiimote does not have X or Y, for example. But at least it's a start.
If anyone has any better ideas, please suggest some...
Is there a possibility for an android app to run as a service in the background, intercept keydown events from the hardware keyboard and change behavior (i.e. the resulting character) in some special cases?
The idea in mind is to have sort of a keyboard layout fix, mainly making important special characters available using an alternative keymap instead of having to select from a huge grid on the touch screen. Sometimes, the default keymap of a mobile devices do not represent all important characters, even more when it comes to non-english languages.
Thanks for inspiration :)
Peter
EDIT: additionally emphasized hardware
What you are describing is in fact not a service in background but replacing the keyboard app itself..take a look at the SWype app.
You do not have to create a service to do this as you want just the your own keyboard layout coming up when entering text, etc.
The sample of replacing a default app in the sdk is the homescreen but the keyboard app can be replaced as well..