When I try to make TextField pre-focused using `on...

# compose

[Kshitij Patil]

When I try to make TextField pre-focused using onActive { focusRequester.requestFocus() } keyboard doesn’t open, when focused manually, it works fine, what could be the issue? is there any other way of doing the same? also, I noticed onActive { } callback is getting deprecated. What should we use instead?

[Karthick]

Maybe Ui not created when you request focus

[Kshitij Patil]

What strategy you’d suggest for a TextField to get focus on UI created?

[jim]

cc @Siyamed @Ralston Da Silva

[Ralston Da Silva]

I think this happens because the window isn't focused yet when onActive is run

[Ralston Da Silva]

You can use AmbientWindowInfo (or AmbientWindowManager) to find out when the Window is focused

[Ralston Da Silva]

I'll investigate and get back to you

[jim]

Thanks @Ralston Da Silva! We should add this (easy/robust default focus routing) to our list of core use cases and make sure it's easy, because it's an important detail that every screen should think about.

[Ralston Da Silva]

Yes, I have a bug tracking this, we were trying to see how far we could go without providing API for default focus yet

[Ralston Da Silva]

In this case, it is not default focus that is off, it's just that the text fiels is focused, but the keyboard is not shown when the textfield is focused during onActive. I think for now we can add some logic in text field to show the keyboard if the text field is focused and the Window gains focus

[Ralston Da Silva]

Anyway, I should reproduce this issue and verify if it is really a window focus issue. I want to investigate this before proposing a fix

[Ralston Da Silva]

I'm a little concerned about the case where a user intentionally dismisses the keyboard (and the text field is left focused) and then we re-show the keyboard when window focus changes.

[Kshitij Patil]

Any updates on this? Should we put requestFocus() into a LaunchedEffect with Unit key?

[Ralston Da Silva]

Hi Kshitij, sorry for the delay. I think this is related to Window focus. I tried to reproduce this on an emulator but I can't reproduce the issue. Do you see this consistently or only sometimes? Which device are you using for testing?

[Kshitij Patil]

https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1612024809054600?thread_ts=1612024809.054600&cid=CJLTWPH7S