ADBKeyBoard

Android Virtual Keyboard Input via ADB

ADBKeyBoard is a virtual keyboard that receives commands from system broadcast intents, which you can send text input using adb.

There is a shell command 'input', which can help you send text input to the Android system.

usage: input [text|keyevent]
  input text 
  input keyevent 

But you cannot send unicode characters using this command, as it is not designed to use it this way.
Reference : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14224549/adb-shell-input-unicode-character

e.g.
adb shell input text '你好嗎' 
is not going to work.

ADBKeyboard will help in these cases, especially in device automation and testings.

How to Use

• Enable 'ADBKeyBoard' in the Language&Input Settings.
• Set it as Default Keyboard OR Select it as the current input method of certain EditText view.
• Sending Broadcast intent via Adb or your Android Services/Apps.

Usage Example:

1. Sending text input
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_TEXT --es msg '你好嗎? Hello?'

2. Sending keyevent code  (67 = KEYCODE_DEL)
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_CODE --ei code 67

3. Sending editor action (2 = IME_ACTION_GO)
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_EDITOR_CODE --ei code 2

4. Sending unicode characters
To send 😸 Cat
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_CHARS --eia chars '128568,32,67,97,116'

Switch to ADBKeyBoard from adb (by robertio) :

adb shell ime set com.android.adbkeyboard/.AdbIME   

Switch back to original virtual keyboard: (swype in my case...)

adb shell ime set com.nuance.swype.dtc/com.nuance.swype.input.IME  

Check your available virtual keyboards:

adb shell ime list -a  

You can try the apk with my debug build: https://github.com/senzhk/ADBKeyBoard/blob/master/bin/ADBKeyBoard.apk

KeyEvent Code Ref: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/KeyEvent.html

Editor Action Code Ref: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/inputmethod/EditorInfo.html