1

I am not an android developer, my team is working on a project and I have spent a lot of time searching for a solution, I just want someone to point me in the right direction.

My team is working on an app that needs to prevent the keyboard from showing up in ANY Android app such as email or skype or any chat application to prevent mail or chatting capabilities during important meetings.

The way we want is, if a user tries to chat on skype then before skype can display the keyboard, the user would be presented with a distracting challenge (maybe a popup with yes/no asking them if they are in a meeting)

If the user choose yes the keyboard would not show up, if the user choose no then the keyboard would show up but the time is logged and audited for correlation with meeting schedules later on.

Is it even possible to do this?

Some of them suggested a Custom ROM but if we can achieve this in a different manner I would like that.

user229044
  • 232,980
  • 40
  • 330
  • 338
stack.user
  • 31
  • 7
  • You're making an app which intercepts all touch/click events, disregarding phone/user state or input. Android won't like it so a custom rom might be a safer way to go... Either way, it's not just gonna end up as a googleplay app and have all those functionalities in. It will need system permissions too. – Shark Feb 18 '16 at 15:37
  • Thanks for the quick response Shark. This app is for a corporate issued phone so we have some leeway on getting the app on the phone. We definitely dont want anybody to maliciously take over the phone. However if corporate mandates it the user will be forced to have the app on the phone. Another idea that came up was to have a service running that will send an intent when the keyboard is about to pop up. When our app receives the intent from this service the app will issue the challenge and decide to hide/show the keyboard. Is this even a feasible solution? – stack.user Feb 18 '16 at 15:59
  • Sounds like it is; you as a vendor will just have to sign the app with your `vendorKey` to give it elevated permissions - but other than that it sounds doable (or "worth a shot") – Shark Feb 18 '16 at 16:03
  • Instead of trying to manipulate other apps and modify their behavior (something Android is very against), maybe a better solution would be to detect whether the user has any of the troubling apps running on their phone during the meeting, and if they do, use YOUR app to constantly come to the front or block or annoy them in some way as to make their social apps unusable. You can easily get a list of installed and running apps: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6064137/can-an-android-application-know-when-another-android-application-is-running – NoChinDeluxe Feb 18 '16 at 16:11
  • You can design and install your own input method. Your app can then force the device to switch to your own keyboard that does not do anything. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/text/creating-input-method.html#GeneralDesign – cwin Feb 18 '16 at 16:23
  • Hey ChriZzZ, I like your suggestion. Can I PM you? – stack.user Feb 19 '16 at 15:06

0 Answers0