Develop Reference

Losing spans on EditText with Google Keyboard as input

I'm trying to apply ForegroundColorSpan with Spannable.EXCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE flag when using TextWatcher at a specific index range.
With my device's default input (Samsung Keyboard) there are no issues and everything works as expected, however when using Google Keyboard as input that's a different story.
From my debugging I found that Google Keyboard places whole words, even if you change one character - I guess that's because of the word correction feature. As a result, if the Span was applied at some point in the word (even at the end), and a user enters more text, the span disappears.
The only exception is when the span is applied to the last character in the word, and the user enters a space ("ends" the word).
The workaround I found is to simply check if the input is a whole word, and whenever it is - apply the Span again. While that does work, it's not a very good solution since I need to set the caret at the end every time, and the fact that I have to re-apply the spin when it could be avoided (that's why I use Spannable.EXCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE flag).
P.S. I tried other flags such as INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE and it sorta works - however it applies the span backwards as-well, resulting the Span to be applied to the entire word, rather than the index I specified.
Are there better solutions to this issue?

Okay so I found a different solution - turning off keyboard's input suggestion. Doing so prevents the input from being whole word and instead just a single character every time.
To do so I had to add textNoSuggestions flag to EditText's inputType attribute.
android:inputType="textNoSuggestions|<other_flags>"
I found more information about this inputType here: Turn off autosuggest for EditText?

lock android keyboard to only show numerics

I have an android app that uses an EditText with android:inputType="number"
when the edittext first displays the softkeyboard appears with only numerics enabled (you can still see the other keys though.
The EditText also has android:digits="0123456789\n" as I want the users to be able to enter multiple lines
As soon as I hit the ENTER key to create another line the numeric keys disappear.
How can I...
a). Only show a numeric keyboard (with Enter key) e.g. just 0123456789?
b). Stop the softkeyboard showing all the other keys?

You want a multiline EditText and numeric keyboard? Seems possible, but deprecated. Check out this answer.
Update:
If everything fails, try to enforce the numeric type every time a line break is inserted:
editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_NUMBER);

Found a solution
by employing
android:digits="0123456789\n"
android:inputType="phone|textMultiLine"
I obtain the desired effect.

Try this
editTextField.setRawInputType(Configuration.KEYBOARD_QWERTY);
This shows the normal key pad with the numeric version first, yet allows you to switch between them.
getInput.setRawInputType(Configuration.KEYBOARD_12KEY);

Android Edit Text Cursor Doesn't Appear

in my app I disabled the keyboard (I use now my custom keyboard) using this code:
editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);
Now, my problem is that the text cursor does not appear anymore in the edit text. What should I do? Any suggestion would be very appreciated.

There is an Issue opened in bug tracker Issue opened in bug tracker for this.
One of the users suggests the approach which works on "most" devices.
Briefly, all you have to do is call:
editText.setRawInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT);
for your EditText view (after you called editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);).
You should probably also set:
editText.setTextIsSelectable(true);
in order for text to be selectable (though in does not seem to work properly with Samsung Galaxy SIII). This method is only available starting from HONEYCOMB (api11) so keep that in mind when developing for older Android versions.
Also it is stated that your EditText should not be the first view to receive focus when activity starts (if it is - just requestFocus() from another view). Though I (personally) have not experienced any problems with this.

Rather than just using a custom view for your custom keyboard, why not implement a full-fledged IME? That will solve your cursor problem, and even make your keyboard available outside your app (if you want).
This answer has a couple useful links if you want to do that:
How to develop a soft keyboard for Android?

I really wouldn't suggest this. Writing a good full fledged IME is really hard. In addition, users come to expect functionality from their keyboard (auto-correct, Swyping, next word prediction, the ability to change languages) that you won't have unless you spend months on the keyboard itself. Any app that wouldn't allow me to use Swype would immediately be removed (bias note: I worked on Swype android).
But if you want to integrate fully with the OS as a keyboard, you're going to have to write an InputMethodService. Your keyboard would then be selectable by the user in the keyboard select menu, and usable for any app. That's the only way to get full OS integration, otherwise you'll need to really start from scratch- writing your own EditView. Have fun with that, getting one that looks nice is decidedly non-trivial.
Also, setting input type null won't disable most keyboards. It just puts them into dumb mode and turns off things like prediction.

I tried the below answer and it worked, but take care that
1) EditText must not be focused on initialization
2) when your orientation changes while the user's focus is on the editText, the stock keyboard pops up, which is another "solvable" problem.
This was mentioned in a previous answer but take care that you MUST make sure your editText element do not get focus on instantiation:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=27609#c7
#7 nyphb...#gmail.com
I have finally found a (for me) working solution to this.
First part (in onCreate):
mText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);
if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 11 /*android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB*/) {
// this fakes the TextView (which actually handles cursor drawing)
// into drawing the cursor even though you've disabled soft input
// with TYPE_NULL
mText.setRawInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT);
}
In addition, android:textIsSelectable needs to be set to true (or set in onCreate) and the EditText must not be focused on initialization. If your EditText is the first focusable View (which it was in my case), you can work around this by putting this just above it:
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="0px"
android:layout_height="0px"
android:focusable="true"
android:focusableInTouchMode="true" >
<requestFocus />
</LinearLayout>

how to hook key event

I'd like to limit the text length of EditText widget,
And if user type more charactes than the limited length,
I want to show a kind of warning popup, however I can't show popup.
The problem is that we can't show popup while typing,
Probably, many people think a way of utilizing OnKeyListener or OnKeyDown.
But, when the word is composing, nothing come into OnKeyListener or OnKeyDown,
So, we can't show popup when we want to.
Is there anyone who have smart idea to solve this problem?

You should be able to remove focus from the widget, and show your message.
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(editTextField.getWindowToken(), 0);

OnKeyboardActionListener is for implementing software keyboards.
OnKeyListener and OnKeyDown do not get called, as you have discovered, when using a software keyboard. They only get called when using a hardware keyboard, which many Android devices don't even have.
I assume what you are trying to do is capture key events as they are occurring in an EditText area. Your best bet in this case, in order to handle both software keyboard input and hardware keyboard input, is to register a TextWatcher via the addTextChangedListener() method.
Note that on phones with Android 2.1 and later, such as the Nexus One, people have the option of using speech recognition to input text into your EditText instead of typing the text. When they do that you may get full words, or even full sentences, entered all at once. So you need to check the entire contents of the EditText field when there is a change to the contents.

Android Virtual Keyboard KeyListener for getting Virtual Keyboard key presses

I want that on each key press I require to change the Counter some what similar to Tweeter Thing but the issue is that OnEditorActionListener only calls for the change while the user presses Enter or Done key, Please Can I Find a Resolution for this

You could use an OnKeyListener if you do really want to catch keystrokes.
However, if what you're really interested in is knowing when the text in an EditText View has changed you might find it easier to use a TextWatcher. You would put your code which updates something based on the context of the EditText in the afterTextChanged() method.