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I am writing a kiosk application for a rooted Android 4.4 tablet. For this I am using cordova. This application can only be controlled with a bluetooth remote control. Unfortunetely there is no Touch, Mouse or Keyboard available.

Using the app with the remote control basically is no problem, but unfortunately it is impossible for the user to fill out <input> -fields!

If the user navigates to an input field, the android-software-keyboard successfully shows up, but it never gets the focus of the remote control. No matter what you press or what you try - you cannot reach it with the remote control. (See attached screenshot)

I have found a cordova plugin, but this is mainly for issues when the software-keyboard doesn't show up at all. It doesn't help in my case.

How can I fix this? How can I focus the keyboard in Java or JavaScript?

enter image description here

Michael B
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1 Answers1

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TL;DR Use another keyboard. (Link)

I found a solution for my problem. It seems that most of the Android-software-keyboards are just not useable with a directional pad (D-PAD) remote control, but only with touch. It has nothing to da with my cordova app, because these keyboards are also not usabale in other apps or even in the native Android settings.

After trying out over a dozen Keyboard apps I finally found one, that is optimized for a Playstation controller (which in this case basically is just a D-PAD). The keyboard is called "Leanback Keyboard" (Link to XDA-Thread) and works just perfectly with the remote control. As soon as I navigate to an input-field, the keyboard pops up, and gets the focus. If you want to leave it and continue navigating in your app, you fave to press the "back"-key.

However I'm still interested if anyone knows a way to achieve this with the "standard-touch-keyboards".

Screenshot of the "Leanback Keyboard":

Leanback Keyboard Screenshot

Michael B
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