Question

On Android, I want to check programmatically if the InputMethod provided by my application is the current activated input method, or not.

Currently, I use a trick : detect whether my InputMethodService is started or not.

public boolean isInputMethodEnabled() {
    ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager).getSystemService(ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    List<RunningServiceInfo> servicesInfo = activityManager.getRunningServices(Integer.MAX_VALUE);

    for (RunningServiceInfo serviceInfo : servicesInfo) {
        if (MyInputMethodService.class.getName().equals(serviceInfo.service.getClassName())) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

This works well in general, but fails when the app is updated : my input method is still selected, but the service is not started yet. The service will be started when a keyboard is required for the first time, and until then isInputMethodEnabled() will return false.

So my question is : do you know another way to check if my input method is selected, or do you know a way to restart the input method service after an update, without having to show a textview ?

Answer 1

I found my answer on another Stack Overflow question :

Android: Determine active input method from code

The following code (updated) did the trick :

public boolean isInputMethodEnabled() {
    String id = Settings.Secure.getString(mContext.getContentResolver(), Settings.Secure.DEFAULT_INPUT_METHOD);

    ComponentName defaultInputMethod = ComponentName.unflattenFromString(id);

    ComponentName myInputMethod = new ComponentName(mContext, MyInputMethodService.class);

    return myInputMethod.equals(defaultInputMethod);
}