Android TextField : set focus + soft input programmatically

In my view, I have a search EditText and I would like to trigger programmatically the behaviour of a click event on the field, i.e give focus to the text field AND display soft keyboard if necessary (if no hard keyboard available).

I tried field.requestFocus(). The field actually gets focus but soft keyboard is not displayed.

I tried field.performClick(). But that only calls the OnClickListener of the field.

Any idea ?

Good sir, try this:

edittext.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
edittext.requestFocus();

I'm not sure, but this might be required on some phones (some of the older devices):

final InputMethodManager inputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) context
				.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
inputMethodManager.showSoftInput(edittext, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);

Here is the code that worked for me.

edittext.post(new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        edittext.requestFocusFromTouch();
        InputMethodManager lManager = (InputMethodManager)getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE); 
        lManager.showSoftInput(edittext, 0);
    }
});

That's it! Enjoy ;)

The following code worked for me, after the other two answers didn't work for me:

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    SingletonBus.INSTANCE.getBus().register(this);
    //passwordInput.requestFocus(); <-- that doesn't work
    passwordInput.postDelayed(new ShowKeyboard(), 300); //250 sometimes doesn't run if returning from LockScreen
}

Where ShowKeyboard is

private class ShowKeyboard implements Runnable {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        passwordInput.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
  //      passwordInput.requestFocusFromTouch();
        passwordInput.requestFocus();            
        getActivity().getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);
        ((InputMethodManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE)).showSoftInput(passwordInput, 0);
    }
}

After a successful input, I also make sure I hide the keyboard

getActivity().getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_HIDDEN);
((InputMethodManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE))
                    .hideSoftInputFromWindow(getView().getWindowToken(), 0);

Technically, I just added 300 ms of delay before running the soft keyboard display request. Weird, right? Also changed requestFocus() to requestFocusFromTouch().

EDIT: Don't use requestFocusFromTouch() it gives a touch event to the launcher. Stick with requestFocus().

EDIT2: In Dialogs (DialogFragment), use the following

getDialog().getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);

instead of

getActivity().getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);

In my case, I wanted to display the virtual keyboard with no reference to a specific textbox, so I used the first part of the accepted answer to focus :

edittext.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
edittext.requestFocus();

Then I show the virtual keyboard :

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

for kotlin, implement using extension function as follow

fun View.showSoftKeyboard() {
    this.requestFocus()
    val imm = context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager
    imm.showSoftInput(this, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT)
}

        field.post(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                field.requestFocus();
                field.onKeyUp(KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER, new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_UP, KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER));
            }
        });

In my case just this solved all problems:

val inputMethodManager: InputMethodManager = 
   context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager
inputMethodManager.showSoftInput(edittext, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT)

I have put it in RecyclerView Adapter, because I use data binding. Also I haven't used edittext.setFocusableInTouchMode(true) because in my layout it is true by default. And don't use this line: edittext.requestFocus(). When I removed it, it started to work :)