Cannot prevent auto-replace in certain apps when using physical keyboard

[claude0001 1,341]

As much as I love my Pro1, here's one thing bugging me:

There seem to be a few Apps that insist on doing auto-replacements even when I use the physical keyboard. That's infuriating, as for me, one of the points of having the keyboard is to be able to type stuff exactly as I want it, with no software thinking it knows better.

To make things worse, the automatic replacement does not follow the typing language set in the on-screen keyboard (Android Keyboard, I type in four languages). E.g. if I try to type the German preposition "im" (in) the software auto-replaces this with "I'm". It seems to default to English which is set as system language.

Needless to say, I tinkered with the auto-correct and auto-replace options of the Android Keyboard. And while that way I can enable or disable auto-correct also for the physical keyboard (i.e. marking of misspelled words), I found no option to prevent it from doing the above auto-replacements. I should mention that I am on LineageOS 16 (last official build). However, as one googles around, one finds similar bug reports for different phones and Android versions in combination with hardware keyboards, so the issue may not be specific to LineageOS. Am I missing something obvious?

Let me also emphasise that the vast majority of Apps do not seem to be affected by this. Up to know I encountered the effect in only two -- which are unfortunately of the typing-intensive sort:

1. The default "Messaging" app. --> Ditched that for QKSMS which does not have the problem.

2. K9-Mail. Do not want to replace that one by a different app, as it seems to be the only open-source mail client that supports arbitrary IMAP server configurations. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by claude0001

[EskeRahn 5,460]

What keyboard software are you using? I will recommend SwiftKey that works well with a physical keyboard (as well as the fake one when closed)

[claude0001 1,341]

Thanks.

I have the default keyboard software (probably the one that is part of AOSP), "Android Keyboard" I believe it is called. I never considered installing anything else, thanks for the hint.

Does Swiftkey work with the Android writing aids (spell checkers)? As noted above, i switch between 4 writing languages, so that is important.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

13 minutes ago, claude0001 said:

Does Swiftkey work with the Android writing aids (spell checkers)? As noted above, i switch between 4 writing languages, so that is important.

It does offer various related options yes. 🙂 

[claude0001 1,341]

Thanks @EskeRahn. I'll check out the various options available at F-Droid first and report if one of those solves my issue. At first sight, AnySoftKeyboard looks good, and has 3 out of the 4 language packs I need ... 🙃

SwiftKey is proprietary and contains some Google and Microsoft trackers. Though these are probably harmless, I tend to be very careful about software that is theoretically able to record everything I type on the phone ...

But thanks for the idea of trying different keyboard Apps in the first place! 

Edited March 17, 2021 by claude0001

[osmosoom 0]

On 3/17/2021 at 3:34 AM, claude0001 said:

As much as I love my Pro1, here's one thing bugging me:

There seem to be a few Apps that insist on doing auto-replacements even when I use the physical keyboard. That's infuriating, as for me, one of the points of having the keyboard is to be able to type stuff exactly as I want it, with no software thinking it knows better.

To make things worse, the automatic replacement does not follow the typing language set in the on-screen keyboard (Android Keyboard, I type in four languages). E.g. if I try to type the German Youtube Vanced Manager APK preposition "im" (in) the software auto-replaces this with "I'm". It seems to default to English which is set as system language.

Needless to say, I tinkered with the auto-correct and auto-replace options of the Android Keyboard. And while that way I can enable or disable auto-correct also for the physical keyboard (i.e. marking of misspelled words), I found no option to prevent it from doing the above auto-replacements. I should mention that I am on LineageOS 16 (last official build). However, as one googles around, one finds similar bug reports for different phones and Android versions in combination with hardware keyboards, so the issue may not be specific to LineageOS. Am I missing something obvious?

Let me also emphasise that the vast majority of Apps do not seem to be affected by this. Up to know I encountered the effect in only two -- which are unfortunately of the typing-intensive sort:

1. The default "Messaging" app. --> Ditched that for QKSMS which does not have the problem.

2. K9-Mail. Do not want to replace that one by a different app, as it seems to be the only open-source mail client that supports arbitrary IMAP server configurations. 

Use gboard. I am using it and can't faced any issue yet.

[claude0001 1,341]

2 hours ago, osmosoom said:

Use gboard

Thanks for the suggestion, but no way.

I did not install a Google-free LineageOS to then use a Google App that can theoretically record and evaluate everything I type on my phone ...

I have given up on that problem for now as it is practically restricted to that one word in K9-Mail, and occurs only with the physical keyboard. Hopefully, K9 will switch to a more modern text input API at some point which should get me rid of this.

Edited July 27, 2021 by claude0001