How to check visibility of software keyboard in Android?

Question

I need to do a very simple thing - find out if the software keyboard is shown. Is this possible in Android?

Answer 1

Some improvements to avoid wrongly detect the visibility of soft keyboard on high density devices:

1. Threshold of height difference should be defined as 128 dp, not 128 pixels.
   Refer to Google design doc about Metrics and Grid, 48 dp is comfortable size for touch object and 32 dp is minimum for buttons. Generic soft keyboard should include 4 rows of key buttons, so minimum keyboard height should be: 32 dp * 4 = 128 dp, that means threshold size should transfer to pixels by multiply device density. For xxxhdpi devices (density 4), the soft keyboard height threshold should be 128 * 4 = 512 pixels.

2. Height difference between root view and its visible area:
   root view height - status bar height - visible frame height = root view bottom - visible frame bottom, since status bar height equal to the top of root view visible frame.

   private final String TAG = "TextEditor";
   private TextView mTextEditor;
   
   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.activity_editor);
       mTextEditor = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_editor);
       mTextEditor.getViewTreeObserver().addOnGlobalLayoutListener(new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
           @Override
           public void onGlobalLayout() {
               isKeyboardShown(mTextEditor.getRootView());
           }
       });
   }
   
   private boolean isKeyboardShown(View rootView) {
       /* 128dp = 32dp * 4, minimum button height 32dp and generic 4 rows soft keyboard */
       final int SOFT_KEYBOARD_HEIGHT_DP_THRESHOLD = 128;
   
       Rect r = new Rect();
       rootView.getWindowVisibleDisplayFrame(r);
       DisplayMetrics dm = rootView.getResources().getDisplayMetrics();
       /* heightDiff = rootView height - status bar height (r.top) - visible frame height (r.bottom - r.top) */
       int heightDiff = rootView.getBottom() - r.bottom;
       /* Threshold size: dp to pixels, multiply with display density */
       boolean isKeyboardShown = heightDiff > SOFT_KEYBOARD_HEIGHT_DP_THRESHOLD * dm.density;
   
       Log.d(TAG, "isKeyboardShown ? " + isKeyboardShown + ", heightDiff:" + heightDiff + ", density:" + dm.density
               + "root view height:" + rootView.getHeight() + ", rect:" + r);
   
       return isKeyboardShown;
   }