How to hide the soft keyboard from inside a fragment?

Question

I have a FragmentActivity using a ViewPager to serve several fragments. Each is a ListFragment with the following layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">
    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:padding="8dp">
        <ListView android:id="@id/android:list"
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="fill_parent" />

        <EditText android:id="@+id/entertext"
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

When starting the activity, the soft keyboard shows. To remedy this, I did the following inside the fragment:

@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    //Save the container view so we can access the window token
    viewContainer = container;
    //get the input method manager service
    imm = (InputMethodManager)getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    . . .
}

@Override
public void onStart() {
    super.onStart();

    //Hide the soft keyboard
    imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(viewContainer.getWindowToken(), 0);
}

I save the incoming ViewGroup container parameter from onCreateView as a way to access the window token for the main activity. This runs without error, but the keyboard doesn't get hidden from the call to hideSoftInputFromWindow in onStart.

Originally, I tried using the inflated layout instead of container, i.e:

imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(myInflatedLayout.getWindowToken(), 0);

but this threw a NullPointerException, presumably because the fragment itself isn't an activity and doesn't have a unique window token?

Is there a way to hide the soft keyboard from within a fragment, or should I create a method in the FragmentActivity and call it from within the fragment?

Answer 1

As long as your Fragment creates a View, you can use the IBinder (window token) from that view after it has been attached. For example, you can override onActivityCreated in your Fragment:

@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onActivityCreated(savedInstanceState);
    final InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(getView().getWindowToken(), 0);
}