Controlling virtual keyboard behavior

The runtime automatically opens the virtual keyboard when the user taps inside a text field or a specially configured interactive object. When the keyboard opens, the runtime follows the native platform conventions in panning and resizing the application content so that the user can see the text as they type.

When the keyboard opens, the focused object dispatches the following events in sequence:

softKeyboardActivating event — dispatched immediately before the keyboard begins to rise over the stage. If you call the preventDefault() method of the dispatched event object, the virtual keyboard does not open.

softKeyboardActivate event — dispatched after softKeyboardActivating event handling has completed. When the focused object dispatches this event, the softKeyboardRect property of the Stage object has been updated to reflect the area of the stage obscured by the virtual keyboard. This event cannot be canceled.

Note: If the keyboard changes size, for example, when the user changes the keyboard type, the focused object dispatches a second softKeyboardActivate event.

softKeyboardDeactivate event — dispatched when the virtual keyboard closes for any reason. This event cannot be canceled.

The following example adds two TextField objects on the stage. The upper TextField prevents the keyboard from raising when you tap the field and closes it if it is already raised. The lower TextField demonstrates the default behavior. The example reports the soft keyboard events dispatched by both text fields.

package
{
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.text.TextField;
    import flash.text.TextFieldType;
    import flash.events.SoftKeyboardEvent;
    public class SoftKeyboardEventExample extends Sprite
    {
        private var tf1:TextField = new TextField();
        private var tf2:TextField = new TextField();

        public function SoftKeyboardEventExample()
        {
            tf1.width = this.stage.stageWidth;
            tf1.type = TextFieldType.INPUT;
            tf1.border = true;
            this.addChild( tf1 );

            tf1.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_ACTIVATING, preventSoftKe    yboard );
            tf1.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_ACTIVATE, preventSoftKe    yboard );
            tf1.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_DEACTIVATE, preventSoftKeyboard );

            tf2.border = true;
            tf2.type = TextFieldType.INPUT;
            tf2.width = this.stage.stageWidth;
            tf2.y = tf1.y + tf1.height + 30;
            this.addChild( tf2 );

            tf2.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_ACTIVATING, allowSoftKeyboard );
            tf2.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_ACTIVATE, allowSoftKeyboard );
            tf2.addEventListener( SoftKeyboardEvent.SOFT_KEYBOARD_DEACTIVATE, allowSoftKeyboard);
        }

        private function preventSoftKeyboard( event:SoftKeyboardEvent ):void
        {
                event.preventDefault();
                this.stage.focus = null; //close the keyboard, if raised
                trace( "tf1 dispatched: " + event.type + " -- " + event.triggerType );
        }
        private function allowSoftKeyboard( event:SoftKeyboardEvent )    :void
        {
                trace( "tf2 dispatched: " + event.type + " -- " + event.triggerType );
        }
    }
}