Figured it out For others trying to achieve this:
SetActivityAttribute(activityname, android:configChanges,"orientation|screenSize|keyboard|keyboardHidden|navigation")
where "activityname" is your main activity, (for example: Main)
When applying this method of keyboard change handling, do we have a way to monitor the Activity onConfigurationChanged method with B4A?
The android developer documentation also says:
"....declaring a configuration with this attribute will prevent the activity from being restarted. Instead, the activity remains running and its onConfigurationChanged()method is called."