How to include suggestions in Android Keyboard - android

I am working on Android SoftKeyboard. I've created layout for keyboard but dont't know how to include suggestions which appears if we type some word in EditText.
For example if i write "Kn" then "Known" and "Known" are shown in Suggestions.
So my questions are -
1) How to include suggestions in Android Softkeyboard?
2) Is there any way to include our own list of suggestions?
Thanx a lot in advance.
I've already checked this and this but not able to find any proper answer. Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT
I want to include suggestions directly above Keyboard as shown in picture below.

You can use the static method UserDictionary.Words.addWord(....): Link
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
// On JellyBean & above, you can provide a shortcut and an explicit Locale
UserDictionary.Words.addWord(this, "MadeUpWord", 10, "Mad", Locale.getDefault());
} else if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.CUPCAKE) {
UserDictionary.Words.addWord(this, "MadeUpWord", 10, UserDictionary.Words.LOCALE_TYPE_CURRENT);
}
You will need to add this permission to your manifest:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_USER_DICTIONARY"/>
Added words will appear in Settings > Language & input > Personal dictionary.
If you are implementing your own soft keyboard, I suggest you go through Creating an Input Method. The suggestions are usually shown in the Candidates View. By default, InputMethodService#onCreateCandidatesView() returns null. You should override this method to return your implementation of the suggestions bar.
Here's a sample project that implements the Candidates view: SoftKeyboard.
More info:
Word and phrase suggestions go in the candidates view. Info about how to create & populate it are in the sample project mentioned above.
As far as I know, the selection of what words/phrases to suggest is developer's responsibility. Android does not provide those for you. You will probably need a set of dictionaries - one for each language/locale you plan on supporting. You may also want to maintain a dictionary of user-specified words.
Android's default keyboard uses these: Link
If you download one of these, unpack it and open with a text editor:
dictionary=main:en,locale=en,description=English,date=1402373178,version=47
word=the,f=222,flags=,originalFreq=222
word=to,f=215,flags=,originalFreq=208
word=of,f=214,flags=,originalFreq=214
word=and,f=212,flags=,originalFreq=212
word=in,f=210,flags=,originalFreq=210
.... 165,635 more lines
As apparent, the frequency plays a pivotal role in determining the suitability of a word as a suggestion. You probably don't want to suggest tachometer when the user types ta. You probably do want to suggest take - frequency helps you there.
Autocorrection:
word=id,f=99,flags=,originalFreq=99
shortcut=I'd,f=whitelist
The flags indicate appropriateness:
word=goddamn,f=0,flags=offensive,originalFreq=62
Even if you decide to use these dictionaries, the code to parse them and obtain meaningful suggestions will have to come from you.
Two articles (both by Peter Kankowski) that talk about predictive text input & spelling correction:
Using DAWG for predictive text input
Using Ternary DAGs for Spelling Correction
CandidatesView:
The first thing you should know about the CandidatesView: it is optional. In fact, LatinIME (android's default soft keyboard) does not use it. Instead LatinIME has its own implementation - SuggestionStripView - which is similar. The default behavior of InputMethodService#onCreateCandidatesView() is to return null. If you choose to provide your own implementation, don't override this method.
You need to decide what your CandidatesView should look like. One possible implementation can be a HorizontalScrollView. After you evaluate your suggestions (for example, user start writing "as", and your suggestion-logic gives you a List<String> containing "has", "was", "assist", "ask", "asked", "asking", "assume"), create & add TextViews holding these strings to the HorizontalScrollView(LinearLayout). This way, user can scroll horizontally and choose the intended word by clicking on it.
It is up to you to decide whether to use the API or handle the CandidatesView yourself. If you want to use the API, override InputMetodService#onCreateCandidatesView(), inflate your custom layout, then return it. Hold a reference to it, so you can update it when required. To control CandidatesView's visibility, use the method setCandidatesViewShown(boolean).

If you are creating a custom keyboard, I suggest you go through Creating Input Method, there is a sample code that you can go over. CandidateView is probably what you are looking for. It is explained in the link above.
If you want to provide inline spell checker, you would want to check out Spellchecker framework
Hope this helps.

Related

Xamarin | Android | Custom Keyboard Android.Views.KeyCode

I am creating a custom keyboard for a Xamarin Android Application. I have it working, and my listener receives the input. My issue is the parameter Android.Views.Keycode. This enumeration does not have all of the possible keys. I have found some of them generate the correct keystroke if the KeyEvent is created with MetaKeyStates.ShiftOn. But even in that I have not found the right combination for the {} keys. There also doesn't appear to be a clear answer to which key or key/MetaState combination maps to backspace, Next, Done, etc.
I have not found documentation that shows which Keyode in conjunction with the required MetaState will generate which key strokes. Does such documentation exists? Does anyone have an exhaustive example showing which Keycode and which metastates create which characters?
Also, in the case of my keyboard, the ! and ? characters will appear on the screen with the normal text. Do I need to use a custom Keycode for them so I can tell the difference between them and the character that would have the same Keycode without a metastate?
Why are you using keycodes? Those are for hardware buttons. Software keyboards usually use InputConnection.commitText and skip keycodes entirely.
Next, Done, etc are the action button. That's another call on InputConnection- performEditorAction.
Delete is generally done by InputConenction.deleteSurroundingText.
Shifts are generally an internal state and not connected to any keycode.
You're doing everything the wrong way, basically. Here's the android implementation, I assume xamarin has its wrappers. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/inputmethod/InputConnection

Select input keyboard type for QLineEdit

Basically I need the feature that is documented here: http://developer.android.com/training/keyboard-input/style.html
I need to specify input type for QLineEdit, specifically I need to set it to number keyboard input.
I can't find anything in Qt documentation.
Use QLineEdit::setInputMethodHints and try hints like Qt::ImhPreferNumbers, Qt::ImhDigitsOnly or Qt::ImhFormattedNumbersOnly or ImhDialableCharactersOnly.

Masking Input in EditText in Android

How to use inputfilter for CNIC i.e #####-#######-# ? Please help me.. I am new to Android and I dont know how to use it?
How to mask input? I went through various sites but couldn't find solution. I am so confused.
Have you tried using Masked EditText ? This is what you want ... :)
If you want a numeric keyboard instead of alphabetical, then comment the following lineof code:
this.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_TEXT_FLAG_NO_SUGGESTIONS);
in the file MaskedEditText.java. Now setting android:inputType = "numeric" will work.
) You can also try the fork of Masked EditText. It's derived but with works with Gradle, has some bugfixes, an example project, and a little bit another behavior :-)
The behavior is also changed:
You can set the flag and the hint will be always visible.
Your pattern is invisible initially and grows automatically as soon, as you type. For instance, in the beginning, it is: "+7(", then you type '999' and it shows you "+7(999)" with another brace. In the original library, AFAIK it works like: "+7( ) - - ", then you type '999' and it transforms into "+7(999) - - " and so on.

Can we use a EditText for creating hyperlinks?

We can use a TextViewfor adding hyperlinks to it by various methods, like using the attribute autoLink, or by using setMovementMethod().
Can we do the same using and EditText widget? I am trying to create a notepad, in which if any such text entered, like url, email, number or something similar, we should get a hyperlink to click on it and open the browser.
Please help.
Thanks All.
As of Android API level 8 there is a WEB_URL pattern. Quoting the source, it "match[es] most part of RFC 3987". If you target a lower API level you could simply copy the pattern from the source and include it in your application. I assume you know how to use patterns and matchers, so I'm not going into more details here.
Also the class URLUtil provides some useful methods, e.g:
isHttpUrl()
isValidUrl()
The descriptions of the methods are not very elaborate, therefore you are probably best of looking at the source and figuring out which one fits your purpose best.
As for when to trigger the validation check, there are multiple possibilities: you could use the EditText callback functions
onFocusChanged(), or
onTextChanged()
or use a TextWatcher, which I think would be better.
I hope this helps, best regards,

Is it possible to define a suggestion list in webview applications?

When entering a string in a text type input element in a webview based app, a list of possible words is showed above the virtual keyboard.
In my application the user is not allowed to input arbitrary words, instead only words and phrases from a database are legal.
So, I want to set the list of words from my phonegap app and disable the automatic creation of this list.
Q: Is this possible to create the list - and how?
(This is a phonegap app and I am testing on android, but this might be a problem for webview / text input fields on different platforms)
EDIT:
Just found out (yes, I'm new to android development), that one can disable the suggestion list with: Settings / Language and Keyboard / Android keyboard / Show suggestions.
But of course, this setting should be made only for the app, from inside the app, without user interaction and not changing anything outside the app.
Any chance to get this done?
EDIT 2:
Instead of disabling the suggestion list I tried to use it.
The displayCompletions method of InputMethodManager sounded promising, so I tried the following code:
...
// data member
InputMethodManager mInputMethodManager = null;
...
...
// initialized
mInputMethodManager = (InputMethodManager) context.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
...
public void showSuggestions(String[] words) {
Log.d(TAG, "showSuggestions (in Java!): " + words.length); // yes, this code is executed
CompletionInfo[] completions = new CompletionInfo[words.length];
for (int i=0; i<words.length; i++) {
completions[i] = new CompletionInfo(i, i, words[i]); // no idea, what the 2 extra integers mean
}
mInputMethodManager.displayCompletions(mView, completions);
}
The method is executed, whenever a new list is available (after the input has changed and the server has answered a request).
However, nothing has changed - the builtin mechanism is still doing its disadvantageous work.
Why don't you use something like the auto complete in jQuery UI.
http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/
Also, it's not too hard to whip this up yourself in JavaScript.
http://www.javascript-examples.com/autocomplete-demo/
In case there are different variants of virtual keyboard(swype and others) there might be no list of possible words. So, I suppose there is no general solution for not showing this list.
There is a parameter http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#attr_android:editorExtras editorExtras which defines parameters passed to input method implementation, but I'm not sure how would you use it in PhoneGap application
Edit:
I suppose you can extend default input method and make it not to show suggestions
inputmethod reference http://developer.android.com/reference/android/inputmethodservice/InputMethodService.html
Providing Custom Software Keyboards
If you are interested in developing your own software keyboards, we highly recommend the following references:
IMEs are implemented as an Android service. Begin by reviewing the Android packages called android.inputmethodservice and android.view.inputmethod, which can be used to implement custom input methods.
The SoftKeyboard sample application in the Android SDK provides an implementation of a software keyboard.
The Android Developer technical articles on onscreen input methods and creating an input method.
found it here http://e-university.wisdomjobs.com/android/chapter-946-288/handling-advanced-user-input.html

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