Accented character selector broken in recent apps

[claude0001 1,341]

Anyone else noticed that the accented-character selector box, that pops up when long-pressing a key on the hardware keyboard, is garbled in most apps nowadays?

One of the last Apps I have that properly supports the feature is QKSMS, where you, e.g., get the following when long-pressing the 'A' key on the hw keyboard:

 

Pretty useful, eh? Sadly, most Apps now display the selector like this:

The example is from K9-Mail, but it really happens in most recent Apps that support the ALPHA keyboard features at all. Note that the selector basically works: You can blindly hit any of the white boxes, and get some accented variant of 'a' (you pick at random, obviously), it is only the display that is messed up.

I have this on Lineage 16.0 (Pro1) and on Lineage 20.0 (Pro1-X), and I'm pretty sure the feature worked universally accross all Apps in the past. So I suspect it has something to do with Apps recently targeting higher SDKs that causes this to break.

Needless to say, the eqivalent function (long-press for accented characters) works perfectly when using the on-screen keyboard. So for now this is one more nail in the coffin of the slide-out keyboard for me ... 😞

Any ideas if (and how) we can fix this universally on the level of LineageOS? I reported this as a bug against K9-Mail some time ago (with no response so far). But, seeing how widespread the issue is, trying to get it fixed in every App individually seems like an uphill battle ...

Edited April 19 by claude0001

[Hook 3,020]

Strange... never noticed this because, in part, I don't use a lot of accented characters, but also, it turns out, testing right now on my Pro1x with Lineage 21, most of the apps I use behave correctly when I hold down the A key.  Even Aquamail, which is based on K-9.  I did find a couple of apps that do what you describe, but I can't figure out why they are doing it but most don't. 

[claude0001 1,341]

Thanks for checking in LineageOS 21, which I can't do easily. I type a lot of German and French characters. With my previous Pro1's QWERTZ keyboard, most of those could be entered natively. But both my Pro1-X and my "new" Pro1 are QWERTY, so it is becoming more of a problem now.

Apps that have the broken selector: K9-Mail, MaterialFiles, Notally, OSMAnd~, SimpleCalendar Pro, VLC, F-Droid, AuroraStore.

(Recently updated) Apps that haven't got the problem (yet?): Firefox, NewPipe, VanillaMusic, QKSMS. I guess it depends on the target SDK specified when building the app, and therefore I fear that the problem will only get more prevalent with time.

One interesting thing I now find while testing around: The official Wikipedia app supports the character selector, but it is themed differently compared to the "default" look as shown above (which somehow reminds me of ancient Android versions):

This is a new variant that I've not seen before. Makes me wonder whether the "broken" apps just make some wrong assumption about the default theming of the dialog box. Which would be something we maybe could fix on the OS level ...

 

[Hook 3,020]

I did notice that the apps that did what you described always showed up with blue buttons and I'm pretty sure the characters are there in very very light grey (I can almost see the light gray when the buttons are a lighter blue, but impossible to read when a darker blue). The ones that pop up correctly do have that Gingerbread look. So, yes, it seems to be a few apps (for me) that are calling up some new theming setting.  I tried changing from dark/black background to (ugh!) light background and it made no difference on the theming of the keyboard pop-ups.  So far, I only have 3 apps that do it.  They always use a blue button color scheme.

[Rob. S. 1,660]

Is there still nothing comparable to FinQwerty that would work on LineageOS?

I dimly remember that while my keyboard demands were mostly satisfied on my QWERTY Pro1 with LOS 18, there were a few apps (most notably Opera, my preferred browser) which never showed the accented character selector box at all; long key presses triggered character repetition instead. 

On my QWERTY Pro1 X, I had been staying with stock Android, plus a modified version of FinQwerty that gave me everything I needed.

I don't quite remember where exactly the problems were located with LineageOS and FinQwerty; was it just that the predefined keymaps didn't fit because of differences in the operating system's underlying keycode mappings, or were there compatibility problems on a more categorical level? 

Edited April 21 by Rob. S.

[claude0001 1,341]

2 hours ago, Rob. S. said:

Is there still nothing comparable to FinQwerty that would work on LineageOS?

The lineage keyboard driver is different on the linux level of keycode mapping. I guess that is the reason why it may not work with third party remapping apps.

However, this is also not necessary, as the LOS driver (on Pro1, not Pro1-X!) natively provides powerful options for remapping of Fn-combos.

But that is not the point: I do not want to remember keys not printed on the keyboard. Therefore the popup selector came in very handy for me.

It is (and has always been) true that some apps do not support showing the selector upon long-press. That's the case e.g. for ConnectBot. I guess apps can opt in or out of the features of the ALPHA keyboard type in Android.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

Currently LOS is pretty useless to me only allowing one layout, quite cumbersome to change when you use multiple languages.

[claude0001 1,341]

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

Currently LOS is pretty useless to me only allowing one layout, quite cumbersome to change when you use multiple languages.

I'm still using Lineage 16.0 productively, where walking through multiple layouts via Cmd-Space actually works. Did not know this was broken in recent LOS. Still, I much preferred the graphical selector, as I cannot remember the location of characters not printed on the keys ... 😄

Edited April 23 by claude0001

[FlyingAntero 871]

5 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Currently LOS is pretty useless to me only allowing one layout, quite cumbersome to change when you use multiple languages.

There might be work around! What if you install different virtual keyboards and select different layout for each one to the physical keyboad settings? Then use Keyboard Switcher and Key Mapper to bring up the pop up for the virtual keyboard selector. I tested it to be working with my self made qwerty phone (bluetooth keyboard).

Edit: You can use the same key combo to bring up the keyboard selector. Biggest downside is that you need to change back the prefered virtual keyboard manually if needed for portrait use.

Edited April 23 by FlyingAntero

[FlyingAntero 871]

On 4/21/2024 at 1:27 PM, Rob. S. said:

On my QWERTY Pro1 X, I had been staying with stock Android, plus a modified version of FinQwerty that gave me everything I needed.

Btw, how did you modified FinQwerty app? Is there possibilty to add own kcm files?

[EskeRahn 5,460]

43 minutes ago, FlyingAntero said:

Btw, how did you modified FinQwerty app? Is there possibilty to add own kcm files?

It is open source, so you can compile your own variant, if you have things set up to do that on a pc.

[FlyingAntero 871]

1 minute ago, EskeRahn said:

It is open source, so you can compile your own variant, if you have things set up to do that on a pc.

Yeah, I know that. But I was just wondering if there is a mod version where you could add kcm files by yourself to the app. But it might not be technically even possible.

[Rob. S. 1,660]

On 4/25/2024 at 5:53 PM, FlyingAntero said:

Yeah, I know that. But I was just wondering if there is a mod version where you could add kcm files by yourself to the app. But it might not be technically even possible.

From what I remember, I think it isn't, because there are Android limitations that forbid it.

[Rob. S. 1,660]

On 4/25/2024 at 5:05 PM, FlyingAntero said:

Btw, how did you modified FinQwerty app? Is there possibilty to add own kcm files?

Oh, I missed the question...!

There is a fairly easy way to statically add kcm files with the need to build and install a new apk after adding – not dynamically, though. 

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3848-pro1-x-us-and-us-intl-with-dead-keys-keyboard-layouts-finqwerty/?tab=comments#comment-65908

I cloned FinQwerty, I think I modified pro1x_qwerty_usa_1.kcm because it had a bug, then I created a new kcm file pro1x_qwerty_usaintl_1.kcm (to use myself), added entries for the latter in generate_layouts.py and in the finqwerty_layouts.xml and built a new apk (using IntelliJ IDEA with Android plugins; could have used the free Android Studio just as well). I considered publishing my version as a fork, seeing that FinQwerty is abandoned and @Anssi Hannula didn't react on my trying to get in contact, either, but didn't do it yet. (By the way, @Slion did something like that earlier with Fx Qwerty https://github.com/Slion/hwkbd for the Pro1.)

Edited April 28 by Rob. S.