How to develop a soft keyboard for Android?

Question

I would like to play around with some ideas and develop a soft keyboard for Android to replace the default one.

• Is there any general information about soft keyboard development for Android out there? Any best practices or guidelines?

• Can I do with my keyboard application pretty much anything I could do with a normal Android application?

• Can I do HTTP connections to synchronize keyboard data with a cloud DB and other phones I have?

• Can I open other windows/screens from a key press, e.g. to display a custom input interface different to a normal QWERTY one. If that doesn't work, can I use a pop-up dialog instead?

Answer 1

Some tips:

• Read this tutorial: Creating an Input Method
• clone this repo: LatinIME

About your questions:

An inputMethod is basically an Android Service, so yes, you can do HTTP and all the stuff you can do in a Service.

You can open Activities and dialogs from the InputMethod. Once again, it's just a Service.

I've been developing an IME, so ask again if you run into an issue.

Answer 2

A good place to start is the sample application provided on the developer docs.

• Guidelines would be to just make it as usable as possible. Take a look at the others available on the market to see what you should be aiming for
• Yes, services can do most things, including internet; provided you have asked for those permissions
• You can open activities and do anything you like n those if you run into a problem with doing some things in the keyboard. For example HTC's keyboard has a button to open the settings activity, and another to open a dialog to change languages.

Take a look at other IME's to see what you should be aiming for. Some (like the official one) are open source.

Answer 3

I tried the sample provided in Android site but it is not working on my hTc Buzz. any suggestions?