Android how to make EditText editable inside a ListView

Question

I have a ListView with edit text in each items and I want to know how can I make the EditText editable.. It seems to work fine if I set the android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustPan" into the manifest but only on some devices. On some devices the soft keyboard covers the edittext.

On the other side, if I don't put android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustPan" in the manifest, the EditText looses focus after the soft keyboard is displayed and I have to touch the EditText multiple times to make it selected and can write in it.

Please help me solve this.

Note: I've seen this post: Focusable EditText inside ListView and nothing helped from there and I have totally other problem than that

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

After unsuccessfully trying to create an interface with EditTexts inside a ListView all I can say to you is "Don't!". You'll be in much more trouble when you have enough items that you have to scroll your ListView, focus will jump here and there, you'll have to save your EditText's state and so on. It seems like general idea is that using EditText in ListView is not worth it.

After quite a bit of research I can suggest the following method that helped me: I've inherited ListView and overrided layoutChildren method, inside it I do the following:

@Override
protected void layoutChildren() {
    super.layoutChildren();
    final EditText tv = (EditText)this.getTag();
    if (tv != null)
    {
        Log.d("RUN", "posting delayed");
        this.post(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                Log.d("RUN", "requesting focus in runnable");
                tv.requestFocusFromTouch();
                tv.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent.obtain(SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN , tv.getWidth(), tv.getHeight(), 0));
                tv.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent.obtain(SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), SystemClock.uptimeMillis(), MotionEvent.ACTION_UP , tv.getWidth(), tv.getHeight(), 0));
            }
        });
    }
}

When I know which EditText should get the focus (I know this when my adapters getView is called) I set this particular EditText as a tag to ListView. Then ListView lays out itself and my post thread is queued. It runs and requests focus, however since it wasn't enough in my case, I also generate two MotionEvents that simply simulate a tap. Apparently this is enough to make the soft keyboard appear. The reasons behind this are explained in an answer here: Android Actionbar Tabs and Keyboard Focus

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 20 '12 at 13:52

I made a workaround for this though.. maybe will help someone

public class EditTextListAdapter extends BaseAdapter {

    /* notes list */
    private ArrayList<SomeData> mSomeData = null;
    /* layout inflater instance */
    private LayoutInflater mInflater;
    /* activity context */
    private Context mContext;

    /* ensure that this constant is greater than the maximum list size */
    private static final int DEFAULT_ID_VALUE = -1;
    /* used to keep the note edit text row id within the list */
    private int mNoteId = DEFAULT_ID_VALUE;

    /**
     * EditTextListAdapter adapter class constructor
     *
     * @param context               activity context
     */
    public FirstTimesListAdapter(Context context) {

        /* get a layout inflater instance */
        mInflater = (LayoutInflater) context.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
        /* load the data */
        mSomeData = SomeData.instance().getData(); 
        /* keep the context */
        mContext = context;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the selected item
     *
     * @return selected item
     */
    public int getSelectedItem() {
        return mSelectedItem;
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return mSomeData.size();
    }

    public Object getItem(int i) {
        return mSomeData.get(i);
    }

    public long getItemId(int i) {
        return i;
    }

    public View getView(final int index, View recycledView, ViewGroup viewGroup) {

        ViewHolder viewHolder;

        if (recycledView == null) {
            /* inflate the list item */
            recycledView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.listview_item_with_edit_text, viewGroup, false);
            /* get link to the view holder views */
            viewHolder = new ViewHolder();
            viewHolder.note = (EditText) recycledView.findViewById(R.id.first_times_note);
            recycledView.setTag(viewHolder);
        } else {
            /* reuse the same views we load the first time */
            viewHolder = (ViewHolder) recycledView.getTag();
        }

        /* display some notes */
        viewHolder.note.setText(mSomeData.getNotes());

        /* if the last id is set, the edit text from this list item was pressed */
        if (mNoteId == index) { 

            /* make the edit text recive focus */
            viewHolder.note.requestFocusFromTouch();
            /* make the edit text's cursor to appear at the end of the text */
            viewHolder.note.setSelection(viewHolder.note.getText().length());

            /* reset the last id to default value */
            mNoteId = DEFAULT_ID_VALUE;
        }

        /* set a touch listener on the edit text just to record the index of the edit text that was pressed */
        viewHolder.note.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListener() {
            public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent motionEvent) {
                if (motionEvent.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) {
                    /* get the index of the touched list item */
                    mNoteId = index;
                }
                return false;
            }
        });

        return recycledView;
    }

    static class ViewHolder {        
        /* note input */
        EditText note;
    }

}

Android how to make EditText editable inside a ListView

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