Android: How to make the keypad always visible?

Question

In android, how do we make the device keypad always visible in the application? The top portion displays the content the application wants to render and bottom portion displays the keypad always.

Answer 1

Try adding android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysVisible" to your activity in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysVisible" />

In my test app this shows the keyboard on starting of the application although it isn't fixed there but can be dismissed by pressing the back button.

To make sure the keyboard is always visible you might have to create your own keyboard as part of your application. Possibly using the Android keyboard from the Android source: http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/packages/inputmethods/LatinIME.git;a=tree

Alternatively there is a current discussion here but without a complete solution: http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse%5Fthread/thread/17210d784766602d