How do I detect if keyboard is currently shown, if I transitioned from another view controller that was already showing the keyboard?

Question

I have a view controller that makes a UITextField firstResponder on ViewWillAppear. Normally I could just rely on a UIKeyboardWillShow notification to detect if the keyboard has shown, but this won't trigger if I came into the current view controller while the keyboard was already showing.

Anyone have any ideas?

in viewWillDisappear just dismiss the keboard by using [self.view endEditing:YES] — Venk, Sep 18 '15 at 04:53

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 14 '17 at 09:34

I noticed while debugging view hierarchy that when keyboard is presented there's UIRemoteKeyboardWindow in hierarchy.

First we can add extension to UIApplication to check window hierarchy for UIRemoteKeyboardWindow:

extension UIApplication {
    var isKeyboardPresented: Bool {
        if let keyboardWindowClass = NSClassFromString("UIRemoteKeyboardWindow"), self.windows.contains(where: { $0.isKind(of: keyboardWindowClass) }) {
            return true
        } else {
            return false
        }
    }
}

Then in viewDidLoad, or where needed we can check:

if UIApplication.shared.isKeyboardPresented {
   print("Keyboard is presented")
}

Although this method is not fully tested and UIRemoteKeyboardWindow is in private headers that's why NSClassFromString is needed for check. Use it with concern!

This works in many cases except when iOS email modal is invoked. Canceling the modal does returns keyboard presented true although it should be false — Markon, Nov 06 '20 at 10:51

Vineet Choudhary · Answer 2 · 2015-09-18T05:23:42.270

When you enter in a textField, it becomes first responder and then the keyboard will appears on your view. You can check the status of the keyboard in your viewWillAppear method [textField isFirstResponder]. If it returns YES, means your keyboard is visible.

-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
     [super viewWillAppear:animated];
     if([textField isFirstResponder]){
       //visible keyboard
     }
}

Edited If you want the height than you can store the keyboard height in some class variable when it appears first time and use in viewWillAppear method

@implementation YourClass{
    CGFloat keyboardSize;
}

-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
     [super viewWillAppear:animated];
     if([textField isFirstResponder]){
        //user keyboardSize here
     }
}

Not necessarily, if a hardware keyboard is used then the software keyboard will not be shown. Additionally, I'd like the actual notification to happen so that I could find the actual size of the keyboard on display. — Vadoff, Sep 18 '15 at 05:03

How do I detect if keyboard is currently shown, if I transitioned from another view controller that was already showing the keyboard?

2 Answers2