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Please make mechanism for adding custom keyboards to applications

asked 2013-12-29 15:43:48 +0300

coderus gravatar image

updated 2013-12-29 16:38:35 +0300

pnuu gravatar image

I'm making Mitakuuluu - WhatsApp client for Sailfish. And the most tricky part of development is implementing emoji keyboard. Harmattan have simple QML properties for changing keyboard, i can set my own Component as software input panel. But Silica have no such methods. I'm starting to rewrite ApplicationWindow component to reserve bottom space for my custom keyboard on demand, but its very dirty hack.

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answered 2013-12-29 16:33:40 +0300

bilog gravatar image

updated 2013-12-29 16:36:00 +0300

Although you cannot add custom keyboards to individual applications, you _can_ add system-wide keyboards by defining a qml layout and placing it in /usr/share/maliit/plugins/com/jolla/layouts/ and either adding a new entry to the layout.conf file that can be found there, or define a new something.conf file (Maliit will read all .conf files).

So for example you could add emoji.qml and emoji.conf, and the emoji keyboard will be available on all applications. Then the only thing you need to do is set up your app to use that keyboard by default (not sure if/how this can be done).

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this case keyboard will be unusable outside application

coderus ( 2013-12-29 16:55:27 +0300 )edit

well, call it whatsapp-emoji then 8-)

bilog ( 2013-12-29 17:02:49 +0300 )edit
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answered 2014-01-10 18:23:45 +0300

MoritzJT gravatar image

While we're at it. How about a system daemon that watches and logs which keyboard layout was last used in which app?

This could be useful for of course emoji but also apps that might be used for specific content that's only available or useful in one language so you can use the correct VKB each time the app opens :-)

This won't be achieved by app developers because seriously who's going to implement persistent VKB remembering?

Having this as a globally persistent option would be state of the art on any mobile OS afaik!

@coderus

Do you know yet whether writing systemwide emoji can be done by community or has to be done by Jolla since their components are proprietary?

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system-wide emoji is easy. same as Harmoji on harmattan. Monochrome and ugly :D

and no, i dont need any watches, etc. i just need old mechanism for setting custom software input panel on the fly

coderus ( 2014-01-10 18:59:30 +0300 )edit
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Asked: 2013-12-29 15:43:48 +0300

Seen: 307 times

Last updated: Jan 10 '14