How disable softkeyboard in WebView

In mobile application development, the WebView component is used to display web content within the application. By default, when a user focuses on a text input field within the WebView, the soft keyboard automatically appears. However, in certain scenarios, we may wish to disable this behavior. The following are several methods to disable the soft keyboard in a WebView, with examples focused on the Android platform.

Method 1: Customize WebView and Override the onCheckIsTextEditor Method

We can achieve this by creating a custom class that extends WebView and overriding the onCheckIsTextEditor method. If this method returns false, the soft keyboard will not appear.

java
public class CustomWebView extends WebView {

    public CustomWebView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public CustomWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public CustomWebView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCheckIsTextEditor() {
        return false; // The soft keyboard will not be displayed
    }
}

Replacing the standard WebView in your application with this custom CustomWebView will disable the soft keyboard.

Method 2: Change the Window Mode to Disable the Soft Keyboard

We can change the soft input mode of the window in the activity that displays the WebView. This can be implemented in the onCreate method of the activity:

java
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_webview);

    // Get the window and set the soft input mode
    getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_HIDDEN);
    ...
}

By setting SOFT_INPUT_STATE_HIDDEN, the soft keyboard will not appear by default, but this approach may not be effective in all cases because user interactions and page scripts may trigger the soft keyboard.

Method 3: Disable Input Fields via JavaScript

If the WebView loads a webpage that we can control, we can disable the text input fields on the page using JavaScript. In this way, even if the user clicks on an input field, the soft keyboard will not appear.

In the HTML markup of the webpage, we can add the readonly attribute to input fields:

html
<input type="text" name="input" readonly>

Or set it dynamically using JavaScript:

javascript
document.getElementById('myInput').readOnly = true;

Method 4: Disable Focus on Input Fields

In certain cases, we may need to prevent the text fields within the WebView from gaining focus through code. We can achieve this using JavaScript code:

java
webView.loadUrl("javascript:document.getElementById('myInput').blur();");

The blur() function causes the input field to lose focus, thereby preventing the soft keyboard from appearing.

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Note that these methods may be affected by the current page content within the WebView. If the page contains multiple input fields or if JavaScript code on the page attempts to modify the state of input fields, additional handling may be required to ensure the soft keyboard does not appear. Additionally, different versions of the Android system and various devices may exhibit different behaviors, so best practice is to conduct thorough testing on the target devices.