Wear Input Method Framework
Wear 2.0 supports input methods beyond voice by extending the Android Input Method Framework (IMF) to Android Wear. IMF allows for virtual, on-screen keyboards and other input methods to be used for text entry. The IMF APIs used for Wear devices are the same as other form factors, though usage is slightly different due to limited screen real estate.
Wear 2.0 comes with the system default Input Method Editor (IME) and opens up the IMF APIs for third-party developers to create custom input methods for Wear.
Figure 1. Sample input methods
Creating an Input Method for Wear
The Android platform provides a standard framework for creating IMEs. To create a Wear-specific IME, you need to optimize your IME for limited screen size.
This document provides guidance that can help you create a Wear-specific IME. Before you continue with this guide, it's important that you read the documentation for Creating an Input Method on handsets.
Invoking an Input Method
If you are developing an IME for Wear, remember that the feature is supported only on Android 6.0 (API level 23) and higher versions of the platform. To ensure that your IME can only be installed on Wearables that support input methods beyond voice, add the following to your app's manifest:
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="23" />This indicates that your app requires Android 6.0 or higher. For more information, see API Levels and the documentation for the <uses-sdk> element.
To control how your app is filtered from devices that do not support Wear IMEs (for example, on Phone), add the following to your app's manifest:
<uses-feature android:required="true" android:name="android.hardware.type.watch" />
Wear provides user settings on the watch that lets the user to enable multiple IMEs from the list of installed IMEs. Once the users enable your IME, they can invoke your IME from:
- A notification or an app using the RemoteInput API.
- Wear apps with an EditText field. Touching a text field places the cursor in the field and automatically displays the IME on focus.
General IME Considerations
Here are some things to consider when implementing IME for Wear:
- Set Default Action
RemoteInput
and Wear apps expect only single-line text entry. The ENTER key should always trigger a call to sendDefaultEditorAction, which causes the app to dismiss the keyboard and continue on to the next step or action. - Use full-screen-mode IME
Input methods on Wear consume most of the screen, leaving very little of the app visible; using full-screen mode ensures an optimal user experience regardless of the app UI. In full-screen mode, an
ExtractEditText
provides a mirrored view of the text field being edited and can be styled to blend with the rest of the input method UI. For more details on full-screen mode, see InputMethodService. - Handle InputType flags
For privacy reasons, at a minimum you should handle the
InputType
flagTYPE_TEXT_VARIATION_PASSWORD
in your IME. When your IME is in password mode, make sure that your keyboard is optimized for single key press (auto spelling correction, auto completion and gesture input are disabled). Most importantly, keyboard in password mode should support ASCII symbols regardless of the input language. For more details, see Specifying The Input Method Type. - Provide a key for switching to the next input method
Android allows users to easily switch between all IMEs supported by the platform. In your IME implementation, set the booleansupportsSwitchingToNextInputMethod = true to enable your IME to support the switching mechanism (so that apps can switch to the next platform-supported IME).
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Wear Navigation and Actions
This lesson describes how to implement action and navigation drawers in your app using the
WearableDrawerLayout
APIs.Create a Drawer Layout
To add an action or a navigation drawer, declare your user interface with aWearableDrawerLayout
object as the root view of your layout. Inside theWearableDrawerLayout
, add one view that contains the main content for the screen (your primary layout when the drawer is hidden) and additional child views that contain the contents of the drawer.For example, the following layout uses a
WearableDrawerLayout
with three child views: aFrameLayout
to contain the main content, a navigation drawer, and an action drawer.<android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableDrawerLayout android:id="@+id/drawer_layout" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" tools:deviceIds="wear"> <FrameLayout android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:id="@+id/content_frame"/> <android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableNavigationDrawer android:id="@+id/top_navigation_drawer" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"/> <android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableActionDrawer android:id="@+id/bottom_action_drawer" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"/> </android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableDrawerLayout>
Initialize the Drawer List
One of the first things you need to do in your activity is to initialize the drawers list of items. You should implement
WearableNavigationDrawerAdapter
to populate the navigation drawer contents. To populate the action drawer with a list of actions, inflate an XML file into the Menu (via MenuInflater).The following code snippet shows how to initialize the contents of your drawers:
public class MainActivity extends WearableActivity implements WearableActionDrawer.OnMenuItemClickListener{ private WearableDrawerLayout mwearableDrawerLayout; private WearableNavigationDrawer mWearableNavigationDrawer; private WearableActionDrawer mWearableActionDrawer; ... @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); ...... // Main Wearable Drawer Layout that wraps all content mWearableDrawerLayout = (WearableDrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout); // Top Navigation Drawer mWearableNavigationDrawer = (WearableNavigationDrawer) findViewById(R.id.top_navigation_drawer); mWearableNavigationDrawer.setAdapter(new YourImplementationNavigationAdapter(this)); // Peeks Navigation drawer on the top. mWearableDrawerLayout.peekDrawer(Gravity.TOP); // Bottom Action Drawer mWearableActionDrawer = (WearableActionDrawer) findViewById(R.id.bottom_action_drawer); // Populate Action Drawer Menu Menu menu = mWearableActionDrawer.getMenu(); MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater(); inflater.inflate(R.menu.action_drawer_menu, menu); mWearableActionDrawer.setOnMenuItemClickListener(this); // Peeks action drawer on the bottom. mWearableDrawerLayout.peekDrawer(Gravity.BOTTOM); } }
Create a Custom View Drawer
To use custom views in drawers, add
WearableDrawerView
to theWearableDrawerLayout
. To set the contents of the drawer, callsetDrawerContent(View)
instead of manually adding the view to the hierarchy. You must also specify the drawer position with theandroid:layout_gravity
attribute.The following example specifies a top drawer:
<android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableDrawerLayout> <FrameLayout android:id=”@+id/content” /> <WearableDrawerView android:layout_width=”match_parent” andndroid:layout_height=”match_parent” android:layout_gravity=”top”> <FrameLayout android:id=”@+id/top_drawer_content” /> </WearableDrawerView> </android.support.wearable.view.drawer.WearableDrawerView>
Listen for Drawer Events
To listen for drawer events, call
setDrawerStateCallback()
on yourWearableDrawerLayout
and pass it an implementation ofWearableDrawerLayout.DrawerStateCallback
. This interface provides callbacks for drawer events such asonDrawerOpened()
,onDrawerClosed(),
andonDrawerStatechanged()
.Peeking Drawers
To set the drawers to temporarily appear, call
peekDrawer()
on yourWearableDrawerLayout
and pass it theGravity
of the drawer. This feature is especially useful because it allows immediate access to the alternate drawer views or actions associated with it.mWearableDrawerLayout.peekDrawer
(Gravity.BOTTOM);
You can also call
setPeekContent()
on your drawer to display a custom view when the drawer is peeking.
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Bridging Mode for Notifications
By default, notifications are bridged (shared) from an app on a companion phone to the watch. If you build a standalone watch app and have a companion phone app, they may duplicate notifications. The Android Wear 2.0 Preview includes a Bridging mode feature to handle this problem of repeated notifications.
With the Android Wear 2.0 Preview, developers can change the behavior of notifications with the following:
- Specifying in the standalone app's Android manifest file that notifications from the corresponding phone app should not be bridged to the watch
- Setting a dismissal ID so notification dismissals are synced across devices
Preventing Bridging with the Bridging Mode Feature
To prevent bridging of notifications from a phone app, you can use an entry in the manifest file of the watch app (e.g. the standalone watch app), as follows:
com.google.android.wearable.notificationBridgeMode
Setting that entry to
NO_BRIDGING
will prevent bridging:<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.wearable.notificationBridgeMode" android:value="NO_BRIDGING" />
The default bridging behavior occurs if you do not include the entry or if you specify a value of
BRIDGING
instead ofNO_BRIDGING
.Existing method of preventing bridging
An existing way to prevent bridging is with the
Notification.Builder
class; specifytrue
in the setLocalOnly method.However, this way to prevent bridging may not be preferable. For example, if a user installs a phone app but not the corresponding watch app, the
setLocalOnly
method could prevent the bridging of helpful notifications. Additionally, users may have multiple paired watches and the watch app may not be installed on all of them.Thus, if bridging should be prevented when the watch app is installed, use the Bridging mode feature.
Using a Dismissal ID to Sync Notification Dismissals
If you prevent bridging with the Bridging mode feature, dismissals (cancellations) of notifications are not synced across a user's devices. However, the following methods of the NotificationCompat.WearableExtender class enable you to use dismissal IDs:
public WearableExtender setDismissalId(String dismissalId) public String getDismissalId()
To enable a dismissal to be synced, use the
setDismissalId()
method. For each notification, pass a globally unique ID, as a string, when you call thesetDismissalId()
method. When the notification is dismissed, all other notifications with the same dismissal ID are dismissed on the watch(es) and on the companion phone. To retrieve a dismissal ID, usegetDismissalId()
.In the following example, syncing of dismissals is enabled because a globally unique ID is specified for a new notification:
NotificationCompat.WearableExtender wearableExtender = new NotificationCompat.WearableExtender().setDismissalId(“abc123”); Notification notification = new NotificationCompat.Builder(context) <set other fields> .extend(wearableExtender) .build();
Dismissal IDs work if a watch is paired to an Android phone, but not if a watch is paired to an iPhone.