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.

Build and install APK

With one device or emulator connected, use these simple steps to install the keyboard:

Get source: git clone https://github.com/senzhk/ADBKeyBoard.git
Go into project dir cd ADBKeyBoard
Set Android SDK location: export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk or edit file local.properties
Build and install: ./gradlew installDebug

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?'

* This may not work for Oreo/P, am/adb command seems not accept utf-8 text string anymore

1.1 Sending text input (base64) if (1) is not working.

* For Mac/Linux, you can use the latest base64 input type with base64 command line tool:
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_B64 --es msg `echo -n '你好嗎? Hello?' | base64`

* For Windows, please try this script (provided by ssddi456): 
https://gist.github.com/ssddi456/889d5e8a2571a33e8fcd0ff6f1288291

* Sample python script to send b64 codes (provided by sunshinewithmoonlight):
import os
import base64
chars = '的广告'
charsb64 = str(base64.b64encode(chars.encode('utf-8')))[1:]
os.system("adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_B64 --es msg %s" %charsb64)

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'

5. Send meta keys
To send Ctrl+Space
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_MCODE --eia mcode '4096,62'

6. CLEAR all text (starting from v2.0)
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_CLEAR_TEXT

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/raw/master/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

zickieloox/ADBKeyBoard

ADBKeyBoard

Build and install APK

How to Use