React Native - Disable soft keyboard permanently on Android

Question

Is it possible not to show the soft keyboard even when the TextInput gets focused? My use case is that I need to hide the keyboard completely (for example like when you use some external keyboard) but I need to retain focus on the TextInput so I can use it normally (see the caret and so).

I don't like hacking libs, but I looked inside the textinput folder in the react-native package and found some files which I thought could be relevant. First this one:

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/1e8f3b11027fe0a7514b4fc97d0798d3c64bc895/ReactAndroid/src/main/java/com/facebook/react/views/textinput/ReactTextInputManager.java#L96

I replaced the code on line 96 with this:

editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL); editText.setTextIsSelectable(true);

but unfortunately it didn't work.

Then I found this file:

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/1e8f3b11027fe0a7514b4fc97d0798d3c64bc895/ReactAndroid/src/main/java/com/facebook/react/views/textinput/ReactEditText.java#L215

And commented out the line 215, but again, it didn't help.

Could anybody point me in a correct direction about how to get this done? Thanks.

Answer 1

You can do this by setting a flag on the MainActivity in the /android part of the project.

Open the AndroidManifest.xml file for app/src/main and under the MainActivity change:

  <activity
    android:name=".MainActivity"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize"
    android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustResize">

to this

  <activity
    android:name=".MainActivity"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize"
    android:windowSoftInputMode="stateHidden">

That should disable the keyboard permanently for that Activity, which in the general case is the bulk of your React Native app on Android. For more information see: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html#wsoft

Answer 2

You can do it by adding an attribute to the textinput "showsoftinputonfocus" to false

More info on implementation https://techythought.com/home/detail/Disable_keyboard_for_textinput_in_React-native