I wanted to ask a quick question just to make sure I am not missing anything simple before I implement a more difficult method. I need to create a custom keyboard for an iPhone application. This I have already done by creating a view with the buttons, using a custom input view and it displays exactly like it should. Now most of the buttons are standard numbers which need to update a UITextField in the screen that called the keyboard. Does anyone know a simple way to do this? I assume there has to be a built in function that the keyboard uses to send the information but I haven't been able to find any reference to it. Otherwise I will have to go the more difficult route. If anyone has a simple way to do this I would appreciate it. I haven't worked with custom keyboards before.
You won't be able to do it the same way that Apple does it, as their keyboard is basically an input device, globally.
I recommend you just append the data in your button press multiplex method. Here's an example:
NSString *appendThisText = #"subtitle";
self.myTextView.text=[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#%#", self.myTextView.text, appendThisText];
Custom keyboards are simpler than you realise.
UITextField conforms to the UITextInput protocol. That's a bit of a red-herring because this protocol provides all the really complex stuff like selecting text and so on. But UITextInput itself conforms to UIKeyInput. This is your friend.
The key UIKeyInput methods are:
- (void)insertText:(NSString *)text;
- (void)deleteBackward;
Your keyboard class should have a delegate (which points to the textfield that the keyboard is operating on) and you simply call these methods to insert and delete text.
Related
Based on docs I know that I can implement a custom system-wide keyboard by implementing keyboard extension.
However, when working only in application scope, we are recommended to use custom input views. In app-scope, we have an option to implement just an input accessory view, in case we just want to add a couple of buttons to a standard keyboard.
Now I am standing before a task in which seems I would very much benefit from something like a system-wide accessory input view. I need only to add a couple of buttons to the standard keyboard, but it needs to be accessible in system wide scope. The only way to get it seems to be implementing my own custom keyboard extension in which I would need to lay out and implement the full fledged keyboard, and then add those custom buttons on top of it. But I would very much like to avoid implementing my own "standard" keyboard and just piggy-back either on standard keyboard (using something like system-wide keyboard). Is there a standard way to do it?
So far it seems the fastest way would be taking one of the open source keyboards mimicking the standard keyboard, e.g., Tasty Imitation Keyboard, and modifying it to my own needs. It would be better than having to reimplement the whole keyboard on my own, yet, I would still like to find a way how to extend the standard keyboard.
Is it possible to add a done or cancel key which dismisses a keyboard to all keyboards in an iOS app? There are several posts asking how to dismiss a keyboard via a cancel or done button, but the solutions are on a field by field basis.
Are there any solutions that add this functionality globally so the code wont need to be duplicated for each textfield/area in an application?
Like #silentBob says in his answer, the inputAccessoryView of a text field is the view that’s displayed immediately above the keyboard when the text field is the first responder. If you didn’t want to write an extension on UITextField to override the -inputAccessoryView method, you could also create a subclass of UITextField to do the same, which would make it easier to determine which method is going to be called. You could also have multiple subclasses of UITextField to customize which button(s) appear. If you have a text field in a storyboard, you can simply change the class to your custom subclass, so while you have to go through and make those changes, you don’t have to do it in code.
Yes, you can add an extension to UITextField class, which should add a UIToolbar with Done and Cancel actions as UITextField inputAccessoryView.
Well, In that case you have to customise the keyboard, built your own keyboard and do whatever you need to do with your key in the keyboard.
With UIAccessibilityFocus protocol, supposedly, if you override accessibilityElementDidBecomeFocused() and accessibilityElementDidLoseFocus(), you will be able to track when an accessible element gain or lose focus while Voiceover is running. This seems to work well with all field types - UIButton, UILabel, UISwitch, UITextView, etc. - except UITextField. When Voiceover focus is on (or leaving) an UITextField, those functions are simply not called. Just wondering if it is a bug or something else. Thanks!
This is a feature, let me explain.
Without VoiceOver turned on there is no concept of focus within iOS. Except in the case of UITextField. UITextFields get "focused" (again focus isn't really a concept in iOS without voiceover) with or without VoiceOver on. For the other elements, this is not the case. They do not have "gainFocus" equivalents. A UIButton gaining focus is only meaningful from an accessibility standpoint. So they add in the special accessibilityElementDidGainFocus calls for those classes. They are specifically removed from UITextFields because that call would be logically equivalent to calls that already exist for that class, independent of the Accessibility API.
I have developed an IOS 8 custom keyboard. I want to give it "undo" and "redo" functionality, like the default system keyboard. I have tried it in different ways but was unable to find a good solution.
We can interact with a Text Input Object textDocumentProxy with the methods
insertText
deleteBackward
documentContextAfterInput
ocumentContextBeforeInput
But I was unable to find any way of implementing "undo" and "redo" functionality.
I think we can NOT implement these function (undo,redo)
According to https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Keyboard.html
Because a custom keyboard can draw only within the primary view of its
UIInputViewController object, it cannot select text. Text selection is
under the control of the app that is using the keyboard. If that app
provides an editing menu interface (such as for Cut, Copy, and Paste),
the keyboard has no access to it. A custom keyboard cannot offer
inline autocorrection controls near the insertion point.
I think there are many case that content of textfield changed and you can not know when it changed, how it changed. If we can not know, we can not know to undo to where too. I think so.
I'm developing Custom keyboard extension like you and I have many problems. (eg: how can we know the current cursor to get current text selection...)
My question: Current text selection in CustomKeyBoardExtension (hope somebody know)
Currently I am using UIKeyinput but it is only sending a single delteBackward event even when I hold down the delete key for a long time.
How can I make it send me multiple event calls when I hold delete down for a long time?
There is no easy way to have the system keyboard do auto-repeat. These leaves you with two options:
Fake it by using an overlay on the keyboard (see the comment by #pho0)
Implement a custom keyboard, install it as the inputView for your view or view controller and implement a custom protocol that supports auto-repeat.
Solution 1 works well if you only need the delete key to auto-repeat, but if you need all the keys to auto-repeat the overlay code becomes as complex as the custom keyboard option. (The overlay needs a rectangle for each key, so why not just replace the underlaying keyboard).
Solution 2 involves a certain amount of "up-front" work... One way you might do this is define a key cap class (like a physical key) and a keyboard layout class.
I have implemented both solutions in projects I have worked on, but I currently use solution 2 since I can create whatever keyboard I like. In the simple case the use need never know that it is not the system keyboard. For power users they can customize the keyboard as they see fit.
For what it is worth, I found it useful to have the keyboard class be dumb; it just communicates that a key has transitioned to being down or has transitioned to being up. An additional class above that decides what action should be taken.
In some ways, I know this is not the answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps,
IDZ
One thing I've seen people do is put a fake button on top of the keyboard button. When someone is holding down on it, have a timer remove the last letter every time it fires.
Hope this helps.