android EditText - finished typing event

I personally prefer automatic submit after end of typing. Here's how you can detect this event.

Declarations and initialization:

private Timer timer = new Timer();
private final long DELAY = 1000; // in ms

Listener in e.g. onCreate()

EditText editTextStop = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editTextStopId);
    editTextStop.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count,
                int after) {
        }
        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(final CharSequence s, int start, int before,
                int count) {
            if(timer != null)
                timer.cancel();
        }
        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(final Editable s) {
            //avoid triggering event when text is too short
            if (s.length() >= 3) {              

                timer = new Timer();
                timer.schedule(new TimerTask() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        // TODO: do what you need here (refresh list)
                        // you will probably need to use
                        // runOnUiThread(Runnable action) for some specific
                        // actions
                        serviceConnector.getStopPoints(s.toString());
                    }

                }, DELAY);
            }
        }
    });

So, when text is changed the timer is starting to wait for any next changes to happen. When they occure timer is cancelled and then started once again.


Better way, you can also use EditText onFocusChange listener to check whether user has done editing: (Need not rely on user pressing the Done or Enter button on Soft keyboard)

 ((EditText)findViewById(R.id.youredittext)).setOnFocusChangeListener(new OnFocusChangeListener() {

    @Override
    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {

      // When focus is lost check that the text field has valid values.

      if (!hasFocus) { {
         // Validate youredittext
      }
    }
 });

Note : For more than one EditText, you can also let your class implement View.OnFocusChangeListener then set the listeners to each of you EditText and validate them as below

((EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext1)).setOnFocusChangeListener(this);
((EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext2)).setOnFocusChangeListener(this);

    @Override
    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {

      // When focus is lost check that the text field has valid values.

      if (!hasFocus) {
        switch (view.getId()) {
           case R.id.edittext1:
                 // Validate EditText1
                 break;
           case R.id.edittext2:
                 // Validate EditText2
                 break;
        }
      }
    }

When the user has finished editing, s/he will press Done or Enter

((EditText)findViewById(R.id.youredittext)).setOnEditorActionListener(
    new EditText.OnEditorActionListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onEditorAction(TextView v, int actionId, KeyEvent event) {
            if (actionId == EditorInfo.IME_ACTION_SEARCH ||
                    actionId == EditorInfo.IME_ACTION_DONE ||
                    event != null &&
                    event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN &&
                    event.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_ENTER) {
                if (event == null || !event.isShiftPressed()) {
                   // the user is done typing. 

                   return true; // consume.
                }                
            }
            return false; // pass on to other listeners. 
        }
    }
);