iOS - How to make custom keyboard extension work with physical keyboard - ios

I have had this question for a long time and I tried to search it in iOS 10 APIs but I couldn't find any, if anyone knows the corresponding APIs, please help here.
So I have an iOS custom keyboard for Mandarin and it requires selecting word after some inputs.
Google's custom keyboard GBoard now supports Simplified Chinese and it works with iPad Pro Smart Keyboard and it will display a list of candidate words right below the cursor as shown in this video.
GBoard Simplified Chinese Input
But I couldn't find the corresponding API to make this happen for my own custom keyboard extension.
So 2 questions here:
Is it doable now to make a custom keyboard extension work for external physical bluetooth keyboard, and how? Not iPad Pro Smart Keyboard but generally using Apple bluetooth keyboard with say an iPad Air.
If #1 it not doable now, how can I make my custom keyboard work like GBoard so that when the user types some english chars, the candidate list will appear right below the cursor and then use arrow keys to navigate and enter to input.
Much appreciated.

Related

How to enable virtual/soft keyboard while connected to a Bluetooth keyboard/Barcode Scanner for React Native on iOS?

I've been researching for quite a while and none of the solutions seemed viable enough. For example: articles as referred within Force software keyboard on iOS 10
Our bluetooth bar code scanner has a button which brings up/down the soft/virtual keyboard, but that's definitely not as user-friendly as having a keyboard popping up when focusing on text input.
Is there anyway to accomodate both virtual/soft keyboard and bluetooth keyboard input on iOS? Thanks!
We've also looked into this which seems promising, display soft keyboard (iPad) when is connected a bluetooth input device
but it requires importing of private framework which isn't supported on newer XCode's, and isn't App Store-Ready?

Numeric keyboard for ipad

I am using the numeric keyboard for ipad and iPhone. The problem is it displays correctly on iphone but on ipad it has the option to type the non numeric characters as well.
I have already validated the input and filtering it so that only the numeric data get typed in but i want to remove that alphabet part totally from the keyboard view. I have read many articles suggesting that i would need to implement the custom keyboard. Is there any other way than the custom keyboard that i can do it quickly. My coding platform is swift.
Any help would be appreciate able.

Presenting just a subset of emojis on the keyboard on iOS apps

I am making an app where I use the "People" emojis as avatar faces and the "Food and drink" emojis for, well, food and drink icons. I would like to use the regular keyboard for presenting the emojis for user input, but I would like to present only these two categories of emojis (and even so, each category would be presented in a different context).
I am working with iOS 8, Xcode 6.3 and Swift.
Can I configure the regular keyboard so that it only shows a subset of emojis which I define?
If not, can I create a new custom keyboard preserving everything from the original Apple keyboard but limiting the subset of characters? Any pointers on how to do this?
Thanks.
You can not configure the regular keyboard so that it only shows a subset of emojis. But yes can make your own custom keyboard.
You can find some really good posts about how to make the custom keyboards:
http://verisage.us/en/blog/2014/07/17/ios-8-custom-keyboard-swift-tutorial/
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ios-8-creating-a-custom-keyboard-in-swift--cms-22344
Also I found this FaceBoardPlus sample: http://code4app.net/ios/FaceBoardPlus/52a9ba56cb7e841e178b69d0 which is exactly what you are looking for but written in objective c.
EDIT: From iOS developer library:
After a user chooses a custom keyboard, it becomes the keyboard for
every app the user opens. For this reason, a keyboard you create must,
at minimum, provide certain base features. Most important, your
keyboard must allow the user to switch to another keyboard.
To provide a fully custom keyboard for just your app or to supplement
the system keyboard with custom keys in just your app, the iOS SDK
provides other, better options. Read about custom input views and
input accessory views in Custom Views for Data Input in Text
Programming Guide for iOS.

How to lock keyboard to Simplified Chinese Handwriting?

I want to lock my keyboard to just simplified chinese handwriting. How do I do this?
The problem is that I am trying to create a Chinese quiz app in Xcode 6 using swift and I want the quiz-takers to write in the character to match the English word using a chinese handwriting keyboard. I do not know how to program this and other questions asked like this do not seem to yield a useful result for me.
You can't lock the keyboard unless you present your own custom keyboard. Once again, you have to take into account those with physical keyboards as well (who can bypass your custom keyboard).
A good recommendation is to use a custom handwriting recogniser that links to a label (to prevent keyboard intervention).

iphone os custom keyboard

I've read a lot of topics about developing a custom keyboard for iOS and it's clear that it is impossible to build a system-wide alternative keyboard.
But I still try to understand how Emoji keyboard(the emoticons additional layer) could make it possible and it is an official app on AppStore (that means it passes Apple approval!).
Note that their keyboard, once installed, can be added in Keyboard section in Settings!
Thanks for help
Emoji apps enable a by-default-disabled keyboard built into iOS. If I recall correctly, it's enabled by default in certain regions (Japan) but disabled in most places. So they aren't adding a new keyboard, just revealing one that's already there.
edit: ... and here's how they do it
The Emoji Icons are a stored in the private use area of unicode. They won't look any good on a different device than an iPhone/iPad, this is Apple specific.
The app is just to enable the keyboard. You can do it yourself: Making An Emoji Enabeling App.
Have a look at The truth about iPhone Emoji, which sheds some light on the whole topic.

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