How to make an edit text start out numeric but accept text also

Question

In my application I have an EditText (Actually it's an implementation of MultiAutoCompleteTextView, but I don't think that matters) in which the user can enter a formula to be calculated, although generally they will want to just enter an integer.

What I would really like is for the keyboard to open with the numeric keyboard showing, but allow them to change to text if they want. As standard of course it shows the letters and allwos them to change to numbers, which is OK, but 90% of the time they will want the numbers.

I tried doing:

 operandEditText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_NUMBER|
 InputType.TYPE_NUMBER_FLAG_SIGNED|InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT);

But the result was a numeric keypad with letters written on the number keys (like a phone keypad), and it didn't write letters anyway.

I'm also aware that I could add a button, spinner or something that changed the input mode of the widget, but the aim of this is to make the interface easier to use, and I'm not sure adding another control will achieve that.

Is there a way to make it do what I want?

edittextbox with numbers and special char http://stackoverflow.com/a/10929070/1012284 — Padma Kumar, Mar 10 '14 at 14:59
Hmm... That question pointed me toward the DigitsKeyListener, which almost works, but it doesn't accept letters even if I include them in the string. — David Kibblewhite, Mar 10 '14 at 15:38
Restricting input isn't really the problem. I just want to present the input mode they'll usually want to use first. — David Kibblewhite, Mar 10 '14 at 15:39

How to make an edit text start out numeric but accept text also

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