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.

Download APK from release page

• APK download: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/senzhk/ADBKeyBoard/master/ADBKeyboard.apk]

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 OR from adb.

  adb install ADBKeyboard.apk 
  adb shell ime enable com.android.adbkeyboard/.AdbIME
  adb shell ime set com.android.adbkeyboard/.AdbIME
  

• 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 + A as below: (4096 is META_CONTROL_ON, 8192 is META_CONTROL_LEFT_ON, 29 is KEYCODE_A)
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_TEXT --es mcode '4096,29' // one metaState.
or
adb shell am broadcast -a ADB_INPUT_TEXT --es mcode '4096+8192,29' // two metaState.


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

Enable ADBKeyBoard from adb :

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

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  

Reset to default, don't care which keyboard was chosen before switch:

adb shell ime reset

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