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How do I clear the focus on an editext? Other StackOverflow posts haven't helped much

I've looked at other StackOverflow posts, but many of them don't work, or the comments say that they don't work. I'm wondering how I can clear the focus on an edittext. I was hoping that when I close the keyboard, it would also lose focus, but this didn't happen.
Because of this, whenever someone exits the app and goes back in (with the app running in the background) the regular keyboard shows up, even though it's not supposed to. I have a whole system in place for managing the keyboard.
Code for showing/closing keyboard
private void closeEmojiKeyboard()
{
ivEmoji.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
ivKeyboard.setVisibility(View.GONE);
showKeyboard(etMessage);
llEmojiKeyboard.setVisibility(View.GONE);
}
private void showKeyboard(EditText view)
{
view.requestFocus();
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.showSoftInput(view, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);
}
Code for hiding keyboard when someone opens the emoji keyboard
ivEmoji.setVisibility(View.GONE);
ivKeyboard.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
hideKeyboard(etMessage);
llEmojiKeyboard.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
And the code that hides the emoji keyboard when clicking the editext
llEmojiKeyboard.setVisibility(View.GONE);
showKeyboard(etMessage);
ivEmoji.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
ivKeyboard.setVisibility(View.GONE);
rvMessages.scrollToPosition(messagesList.size()-1);
Can anybody share some code with me that could help clear focus on my edittext? Thanks.

you can
ex 1.
editText.clearFocus()
ex 2.
EditText et = (EditText)view.findViewById(R.id.my_name);
et.setInputType(EditorInfo.TYPE_NULL); // setCursorVisible(false);

How to add a static keyboard in Android?

I want to add a keyboard to an activity in my app. I don't want the default Android keyboard, that pops up once the user clicks a text field and hides when the user clicks somewhere else. I want to make the keyboard static (it is accessible at any time and doesn't disappear) and identical on any device.
Essentially I would like the keyboard to function similarly as in this crossword puzzle app (Image) that I found.
The first solution that came to my head was to make the keyboard entirely by myself. Basically to add and hardcode every single button manually.
Is there a way to do this easier? Is there an available template?
(I am a total beginner in Android, so I might have missed even the most obvious solution)
Thanks.
EDIT: What I would like to achieve is not only that the keyboard stays open all the time, but also that I can easily control the size and position of the keyboard. I want it to cover a specific area of the screen.

You're going to need to make your own keyboard layout, but unless it needs to be a fully-featured keyboard, it won't be too difficult. Put it in its own layout XML, with corresponding IDs for each key.
You can then use <include> in the layouts where it needs to be included. In Java (or Kotlin), you can then make a "helper" class, which takes the root View of the current Activity/Fragment, finds the keys and sets up a listener framework for when a key is pressed.
As for keeping the device's keyboard hidden, check out the answers here.

Put these methods inside your activity . For opening the keyboard
public void openKeyboard() {
InputMethodManager imm =
(InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
if (imm != null) {
imm.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED, 0);
}
}
For closing the keyboard :
public void closeKeyboard(Activity activity) {
if (activity != null) {
InputMethodManager inputMethodManager =
(InputMethodManager) activity.getSystemService(
Activity.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
if (inputMethodManager != null && activity.getCurrentFocus() != null) {
inputMethodManager.hideSoftInputFromWindow(
activity.getCurrentFocus().getWindowToken(), 0);
}
}
}

Focus Edit Text Programmatically (Kotlin)

I have a createEditText function that creates an EditText and adds it to the view. My issue is that once it is added to the view, the user has to tap the EditText in order for the keyboard to be called and editing to work. What I am trying to do is to have it so that once the EditText is created, the user is automatically taken to the edit mode.
In IOS programming, there is a function called becomeFirstResponder() which achieves this. What would the android equivalent be?
Things I have tried:
myEditText.requestFocus()
myEditText.isActivated
myEditText.isFocused
myEditText.isSelected
myEditText.isEnabled

Unfortunately it is not enough to call only EditText#requestFocus. In addition to this you also have to call the InputMethodManager#showSoftInput. Following utility method should work:
fun openSoftKeyboard(context: Context, view: View) {
view.requestFocus()
// open the soft keyboard
val imm = context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager
imm.showSoftInput(view, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT)
}

This is just an idea (a bit pseudo-code just to clarify things):
myEditText.requestFocus()
(activity or dialog).window.setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_VISIBLE)
You must take care of not showing the soft keyboard if there is a hardware keyboard connected

Add <requestFocus /> in your your EditText view in xml file of layout.

How to enable keyboard on touch after disabling it with setTextIsSelectable

I am using a custom in-app keyboard, so I need to disable the system keyboard. I can do that with
editText.setShowSoftInputOnFocus(false);
for Android API 21+. But to do the same thing down to API 11, I am doing
editText.setTextIsSelectable(true);
Sometimes I want to show the system keyboard again after disabling it with setTextIsSelectable. But I can't figure out how. Doing the following does show the system keyboard, but if the user hides the keyboard and then clicks the EditText again, the keyboard still won't show.
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.showSoftInput(editText, 0);
I guess I could do editText.setOnFocusChangeListener and then manually show or hide the system keyboard, but I would prefer to undo whatever setTextIsSelectable did. The following also does not work:
editText.setFocusable(true);
editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
editText.setClickable(true);
editText.setLongClickable(true);
How do I do it?
Related question

Short answer
Doing the following will reverse the effects of setTextIsSelectable(true) and allow the keyboard to show again when the EditText receives focus.
editText.setTextIsSelectable(false);
editText.setFocusable(true);
editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
editText.setClickable(true);
editText.setLongClickable(true);
editText.setMovementMethod(ArrowKeyMovementMethod.getInstance());
editText.setText(editText.getText(), TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);
Explanation
The thing that prevents the keyboard from showing is isTextSelectable() being true. You can see that here (thanks to #adneal).
The source code for setTextIsSelectable is
public void setTextIsSelectable(boolean selectable) {
if (!selectable && mEditor == null) return; // false is default value with no edit data
createEditorIfNeeded();
if (mEditor.mTextIsSelectable == selectable) return;
mEditor.mTextIsSelectable = selectable;
setFocusableInTouchMode(selectable);
setFocusable(selectable);
setClickable(selectable);
setLongClickable(selectable);
// mInputType should already be EditorInfo.TYPE_NULL and mInput should be null
setMovementMethod(selectable ? ArrowKeyMovementMethod.getInstance() : null);
setText(mText, selectable ? BufferType.SPANNABLE : BufferType.NORMAL);
// Called by setText above, but safer in case of future code changes
mEditor.prepareCursorControllers();
}
Thus, the code in the short answer section above first sets mTextIsSelectable to false with setTextIsSelectable(false) and then undoes all of the other side effects one-by-one.

android: problems with programmatic invoking of soft keyboard

In my application I want to display a list of stuff and provide the user with the ability to filter the list by using the soft keyboard. To that end I added a button that should trigger (hide/show) the soft keyboard for filtering. I don't want to have a visible edit text control, cause it would take up unnecessary space. Rather than that, I would like to display a toast showing the filter query as the user types, much as the 'android:textFilterEnabled' attribute for ListView does. To my understanding there is no obvious way of doing this with available Android components. So I tried the following approach:
1) creating a layout containing invisible edit text and the list view:
<ListView android:id="#+id/main_list"
android:drawSelectorOnTop="false"
android:layout_height="0px"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_weight="5"
/>
2) adding button as a popup and invoking InputMethodManager on click to toggle the soft input (called in onCreate):
private void initButton() {
Button buttonView = (Button) getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.keyboard_button, null);
buttonView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
final View target = findViewById(R.id.filterbox);
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
// this does not work...
// imm.toggleSoftInputFromWindow(target.getWindowToken(), InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED, 0);
// ... so need to track this in an instance variable - which sucks
if (imeShowing) {
imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(target.getWindowToken(), 0);
imeShowing = false;
} else {
// check that the filterbox got focus
Preconditions.checkState(target.requestFocusFromTouch());
Preconditions.checkState(target.hasWindowFocus());
Preconditions.checkState(target.hasFocus());
imm.showSoftInput(target, 0);
imeShowing = true;
}
}
});
buttonPopup = new PopupWindow(buttonView);
// ... code to display the button as a small popup
}
As mentioned in the code sample, the 'obvious' approach (calling toggleSoftInput) does not work, so I had to revert to this ugly if-else. This is however, a secondary problem. The primary problem is that when I run this in the emulator, the soft keyboard is displayed correctly, but as soon as I start typing in it, the systems starts an intent to the google search activity! And the typed characters appear in the Google search box displayed as a result. What is even more weird, this only happens the first time I type after deploying and running the app. I.e. if I go back to my app from the Google search box, everything works as expected (no redirects to the search box). Before showing the display I make sure that the invisible edittext gets focus, so it should be the target of the soft keyboard, right??
Does anyone have any idea what is happening here?

Sorry this is me (the author of this question), I can't access my old account due to SO new 'awesome' OpenID login:/
So I figured out that what I really need to do is just turn on the 'android:textFilterEnabled' attribute of the list, and focus on it on the button click. ListView supports input from soft keyboard (although I figured it out by looking at the actual code of AbsListView rather than getting hints in any documentation:). Also, I managed to get PopupWindow working for the button (instead of Dialog that I tried previously) so the focus problem is gone. The working code for this (in case anyone has similar problem) below:
View popupView = getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.keyboard_button, null);
Button buttonView = (Button) popupView.findViewById(R.id.keyboardButton);
buttonView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
final View list = findViewById(R.id.the_list);
list.requestFocus();
imm.toggleSoftInput(InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED, 0);
}
});
buttonPopup = new PopupWindow(this);
The list will handle input from soft keyboard just as it does from hard one. The trick is just to trigger the keyboard and focus on the list. Also you may control how the filtering is applied to the list by setting a custom QueryFilterProvider on its associated adapter.