Android: EditText in Dialog doesn't pull up soft keyboard

OK, so after reading a lot, I have figured out why this is a problem, and I do not need to use any workarounds.

The problem seems to be (at least in my case), that since the place where you enter text is hidden initially (or nested or something), AlertDialog is automatically setting the flag WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM (or some combination of that and WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE) so that things don't trigger a soft input to show up.

The way that I've found to fix this is to add the following line after the dialog has been created:

dialog.getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE|WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);

Once this is done, the EditText acts like a normal EditText, no kludges or workarounds necessary.

I have the same problem in my own app. If you are developing for API level >= 8 you can use this snippet:

dialog.setOnShowListener(new OnShowListener() {
    @Override
     public void onShow(DialogInterface dialog) {
         InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
         imm.showSoftInput(textEdit, InputMethodManager.SHOW_IMPLICIT);
    }
});

I haven't found a solution for lower API levels...

BTW: This snippet doesn't always work on emulator. I don't know why.

If you read the AlertDialog documentation you'll find there:

The AlertDialog class takes care of automatically setting *WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM* for you based on whether any views in the dialog return true from View.onCheckIsTextEditor(). Generally you want this set for a Dialog without text editors, so that it will be placed on top of the current input method UI. You can modify this behavior by forcing the flag to your desired mode after calling onCreate.

I had the problem you've mentioned with EditText in ListView inside a Dialog. I fixed it by overwriting the custom view class (in my case ListView) with my own FocusableListView, with just one method overwritten:

public class FocusableListView extends ListView {

    public FocusableListView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public FocusableListView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public FocusableListView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCheckIsTextEditor() {
        // this is where the magic happens
        return true;
    }
}

Then I'm using it in the layout file as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<com.myexample.wiget.FocusableListView 
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:descendantFocusability="beforeDescendants"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

You can overwrite the RelativeLayout in your case the same way and it should work.

This is what worked for me. Create the AlertDialog.Builder, set title, positiveButton, negativeButton. After do this:

    AlertDialog dialog = builder.create();
    dialog.getWindow().clearFlags( WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE |WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
    dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_VISIBLE);
    dialog.show();
    editText.requestFocus();

You don't need to use builder.show();.

The code above is very helpfull. But you must call the "show" method after the "create" method (I don't know why, but only this works in my dialog with EditText in ListView). In method onCreateDialog:

@Override
protected Dialog onCreateDialog(int id) {
  switch (id) {
    case YOUR_DIALOG_ID: {
        //...
        AlertDialog a = new AlertDialog.Builder(this)./*
        ... set the properties here
        */
        .create();
        a.show(); //!!! this is very important to call the "show" method
        a.getWindow().clearFlags(
                WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE
                | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
        return a;
    }
  //...
  }
  return null;
}

Thank you! I have an embedded TextEdit in the last row of ListView embedded in the alert dialog fragment. I used your solution of clearing the flags as a post runnable and now it works perfectly.

    @Override
public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(getContext());
    builder.setTitle("My Title");
    m_adapter = new MyAdapter(getContext());
    builder.setAdapter(m_adapter, new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        }
    }); 

    final AlertDialog dialog = builder.create();
    final ListView listView = dialog.getListView();
    listView.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view,
                int position, long id) {

        }
    });

    listView.post(new Runnable() {

        @Override
        public void run() {
            dialog.getWindow().clearFlags(
                    WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE |
                    WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);              
        }
    });
    return dialog;
}

Here's one way to do it:

    final Window dialogWindow = dialog.getWindow();
    dialogWindow.clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
    dialogWindow.setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);

I would like to add on to Paul's answer and Alexander's comment.

I myself have a dialog that's created in the onCreateDialog() method, which (seems to) require returning dialog.show();, wherefore you can not add the layoutparams to the dialog where the dialog is created. To work around this, just keep your onCreateDialog() method the same, and add an onResume() method as follows:

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    Dialog dialog = getDialog();
    dialog.getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
    dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_VISIBLE);
}

This should do the trick, it works for me, thankfully. Have been on this case for quite some while.

full code for showing the keyboard in dialog:

public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {
    Log.v("onFocusChange", hasFocus + " " + showkeyboard);
    if (hasFocus) {
        if (showkeyboard++ == 0) {
            alertDialog.getWindow().clearFlags(
                    WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE
                    | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
            alertDialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(
                    WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);
        } else {
            showkeyboard = 1;
        }
    }
}

This worked for me ----
editText.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
//dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_ADJUST_RESIZE);
//dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);
//dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_VISIBLE);
//dialog.getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_NOT_FOCUSABLE | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALT_FOCUSABLE_IM);
InputMethodManager mgr = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
mgr.showSoftInput(v, InputMethodManager.SHOW_FORCED);
editText.setFocusable(true);
}
});

just add below codeLine:

// to show keyboard automatically while editText is in dialog dialog.getWindow().setSoftInputMode (WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);