IOS Dismiss/Show keyboard without Resigning First Responder

Question

My application is used with a barcode scanner connected via Bluetooth. When the scanner is connected you can double tap a button on the scanner to dismiss/show the on scree

Answer 1

I ran into this today and have found a solution. The trick is to use a secondary text field that is off-screen or hidden with a custom empty inputView set and make that field become the first responder. That field captures text from the hardware scanner while the software keyboard hides.

However I got this working using a very similar approach and instead making the view controller itself the first responder as the scanning input view.

Example:

class SearchViewController: UIViewController, UIKeyInput {

    let searchField = UITextField()
    let softwareKeyboardHider = UIView()

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        view.addSubview(searchField)
        inputAssistantItem.leadingBarButtonGroups = []
        inputAssistantItem.trailingBarButtonGroups = []
    }

    override var canBecomeFirstResponder: Bool {
        return true
    }

    override var inputView: UIView? {
        return softwareKeyboardHider
    }

    var hasText: Bool {
        return searchField.hasText
    }

    func insertText(_ text: String) {
        searchField.insertText(text)
    }

    func deleteBackward() {
        searchField.deleteBackward()
    }
}

Now, when you want to hide the software keyboard make SearchViewController the first responder.

To show the software keyboard make SearchViewController.searchField the first responder.