android - Displaying soft keyboard whenever AlertDialog.Builder object is opened

Question

My code for opening an input dialog reads as follows:

final AlertDialog.Builder alert = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);  
alert.setTitle("Dialog Title");  
alert.setMessage("Request information");  
LayoutInflater factory = LayoutInflater.from(this);
final View textEntryView = factory.inflate(R.layout.edittextautotextlayout, null);
final EditText inputBox = (EditText) textEntryView.findViewById(R.id.my_et_layout);
alert.setView(inputBox);

This works fine except that I have to tap the text entry line before the soft keyboard appears.

Following the advice given here I have tried inserting:

inputBox.setOnFocusChangeListener(new View.OnFocusChangeListener() {
    @Override
    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {
        if (hasFocus) {
            alert.getWindow().setSoftInputMode( 
               WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);
        }
    }
});

but Eclipse objects that "the method getWindow() is not defined for the type AlertDialog.Builder".

It seems that the setOnFocusChangeListener code works for an AlertDialog object but not an AlertDialog.Builder. How should I modify my code to make the soft keyboard appear automatcially.

Answer 1

As long as you always need to show the keyboard immediately once the dialog opens rather than once a specific form widget inside gets focus (for instance, if your dialog just shows an EditText and a button), you can do the following:

AlertDialog alertToShow = alert.create();
alertToShow.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(
    WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_VISIBLE);
alertToShow.show();

Rather than calling .show() on your builder immediately, you can instead call .create() which allows you to do some extra processing on it before you display it onto the screen.