Question

I am new to Android development and having a problem with what SHOULD be a very simple task. I want to receive KeyEvents whenever a user is typing in an EditText field because I want to save their entered values to data structures in the background on each key stroke.

I have mimic’d the code in the Beginner’s Dev guide at http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-formstuff.html#EditText and set up an OnKeyListener. Here is a snippet of my code:


cell.amountEditText.setOnKeyListener(new View.OnKeyListener() {

public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
    System.err.println("onKey for Amount, key="+event.getDisplayLabel());
    if (event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
        return onKeyDownInAmount(finalPosition, (EditText)v, keyCode, event);
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

});


Behavior on the emulator is spotty at best, some times it will deliver the KeyEvents for the virtual keyboard, sometimes it won’t. When I install the app on my device (HTC Hero which has a virtual keyboard only) then NONE of the events fire. I never receive a single KeyEvent.

What am I doing wrong?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

The onKeyListener only receives events from a hardware keyboard. Use TextWatcher instead.