Trying to get physical keyboards to work with AlienDalvik and Flatpak

answered 2020-05-22 14:50:47 +0300

Kabouik
909 ●19 ●37 ●40

updated 2020-05-23 23:26:24 +0300

Any change I make in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ reflects on the input in native applications (except compose with deadkeys does not work), but not in Alien Dalvik. One should be able to change the layout in Android Settings > Languages & input > Physical keyboard > Remote Keyboard as you showed, but like you said, only US seems to work, and somehow modifier keys (even Shift) don't work at all.

A workaround is to use the Android application External Keyboard Helper Pro:

1. In EKH settings, go to Choose keyboard layout and choose the layout closest to what you want. I believe all layouts there are supplied by EKH itself, and not related in any way to the layouts and variants in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/, meaning if you had a custom layout for SFOS, you cannot re-use it in EKH.
2. However, if you go to Advanced settings > Keyboard mapping > Customize keyboard mappings, you can edit to your liking the base layout you selected previously.
3. When you're all set, you can test your layout in the "Test area" (the tree-dot menu on the top tight). When focusing a text entry field for the first time, make sure you tap on the keyboard icon in the Android toolbar (where the back button is located) to select EKH Pro as text input instead of Remote Keyboard.

Your custon keyboard will be stored in /home/.android/data/data/com.apedroid.hwkeyboardhelper/files/custom.txt, in case you want a backup or want to share it. EKH Pro supports compose and dead keys, and you can even select multiple layouts and toggle between them using a keybinding (which you can do in SFOS too but only after enabling this option from command line with dconf). Unfortunately, it's a paid application, but it allowed me to use US-international and dead keys in Alien Dalvik with a hardware keyboard. There is a demo version you could test for free to make sure it works for you before deciding if the Pro version is worth a purchase. The demo really is just a demo, no way to use that permanently: "Everything works just like in the Pro version except for the Space button which prints a message that this is a demo version."

Not an ideal answer, I'd prefer to have all this functionality when using the default Remote Keyboard input in Android settings, but works as a temporary solution until using extra layouts is fixed in Remote Keyboard. I see you have been asking about using other layouts for Flatpak applications too in @rinigus' Github, obviously EKH won't be of any help there, sorry. :\

Also, putting this link here because I always struggle horribly to find it in TJC: https://together.jolla.com/question/46107/is-there-a-config-file-to-change-bt-keyboard-layout/?answer=67466#post-id-67466 Have you tried that?