OSK Enhancements Proposals

kugiigi

So the OSK theme landed a few OTAs back. Awesome right?!
And now I'm back with my OSK works....finally!....specifically with the advanced text functionalities in the OSK.
I've prototyped and demoed this almost half a year ago but now I want to make it "PR-ready".
So once I get satisfied, I will propose this officially.

List of changes and additional features

Added audio and haptic feedback to the word ribbon (auto suggest bar)
Temporary fix for the issue where cursor mover isn't working correctly in QtWebEngine text fields such as in the Morph Browser (some trade-offs to fix this temporarily)
Horizontal movement in the cursor mover will now move vertically once the start/end of line is reached. I'm not sure how this really affects the experience but it was definitely implemented like that before for a reason. (a trade-off for the issue above)
A new way to trigger the cursor mover mode (bottom swipe). This is available anywhere in the OSK so regardless of the layout or type, you can now trigger it. Press and hold in the space bar is still available.
Implemented text manipulation features which are available in a top bar that shows up when in cursor mover mode.
- Copy
- Cut
- Paste
- Select All
- Undo
- Redo
Implemented text selection mode (no timeout, needs manually exiting)
- While in cursor mover mode, double tap/click to enter selection mode. You can also immediately select texts by double tapping then swiping immediately without lifting your finger.
- Word Selection: Double tap while in cursor mover mode without swiping [Disabled for now to fix QtWebEngine issue]
Added floating buttons in cursor mover mode
- Move cursor to the start/end of line or document
- They can also be used in conjunction with the selection mode!
- Done button: Used to end selection mode and/or cursor mover mode
Changed timeout of cursor mover mode to 5 seconds (experimental)

Know Issues:

~~The new toolbar buttons and floating buttons sometimes retain their previous color when changing OSK theme.~~
FIXED: Just needed to bind the colors
~~Using the Start of line/document button from the floating buttons while in selection mode doesn't select texts. I'm not really sure why.~~
FIXED: Stupid mistake by me....it worked in my first branch and just had a mistake with this new branch
The bottom swipe trigger might be difficult to trigger in landscape mode especially for devices with protrusion on the sides/bezels especially those with cases.

Please feel free to try it out from the git branch linked below. You'd need to use crossbuilder to compile it and deploy to your device via ADB.
https://github.com/kugiigi/keyboard-component/tree/xenial_-_textfunctions

NOTE: BEWARE EDGE CHANNEL USERS. This won't work on edge because there's a separate branch for it which I don't have a modified fork yet. If there's plenty of interested then I might consider

Suggestions and feedback will also be greatly appreciated especially on the design

TotalSonic

That is awesome Kugi! Thank you so much for your work on this, and I truly hope this can make it into OTA10 if at all possible.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

kugiigi

Some screenshots

Cursor mover mode

Selection Mode

kugiigi

I'm doing some kind of an experiment here.
I know this looks familiar....ehem iOS and Android
But this one's only in the keyboard though.
Serves as a visual hint for a bottom swipe to open cursor mover mode and horizontal swipes for switching between keyboard layouts/languages.
Perhaps other functions for press and press & hold.
What do you think? It takes some spaces from the keyboard but it's quite minimal

Leppa

@kugiigi Perhaps move the bar onto the spacebar?

kugiigi

@Leppa I want to move the trigger from the space bar because it's not available on every layout such as emoji and japanese layout.

kugiigi

Here's a quick overview of my experiments with bottom gestures in the OSK.
I'm still undecided with the horizontal bar at the bottom to be honest
Everything's experimental here..take note
What do you think?

https://youtu.be/Qh_CkiM4nyQ

domubpkm

@kugiigi Question at one euro cent : does selection of a specific character string, copy, of a morph-browser page works ?

kugiigi

@domubpkm Do you mean if these features works on the Morph browser?
They do work, I did a workaround to have the cursor mover work properly on the browser.

domubpkm

@kugiigi Goood !!
And in dekko 2 ?

kugiigi

@domubpkm I think it works in any text fields but I haven't really tested it in all places

domubpkm

@kugiigi ok. If it could works everywhere, with apps or webapps, it would more than very fine !! Anyway, you have some good ideas. Good continuation.

malditobastardo

First, great work kugi. Thank you for your effort. Can I just give you an idea about one solution that exists on iOS and it would be great if something like this is feasible to implement also in UT.

The feature is called SwipeSelection and I been using it for years and for me is the most intuitive way to move the cursor and make selection using a phone OSK. I think it could be great to imitate this tweak

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=qLgK7M3m4t4

kugiigi

@malditobastardo I honestly don't check on existing features on other OS so that I base my implementations on how UT is and how I think it can be improved without being influenced by other implementations

But that actually looks good and easy to use however, it might be very tricky to implement because it will conflict with existing gestures/inputs.

Can you explain exactly how it works? Any horizontal swipe moves the cursor? then a swipe from edge will select text?
How do you do vertical movements? I'm interested to try it out actually

kugiigi

Anyone who has a spare device can try out the experiments I've been doing in the OSK.

Here are the repos for both edge and normal channels.

You may build them yourselves using crossbuilder or use the ready-built deb files I've also uploaded.

Instructions

Make your root temporarily writable using UT Tweak Tool System >> Make image writable
Download the deb files
Copy them to a directory in your UT device.
Execute the following commands
- cd <directory with deb files>
- sudo dpkg -i *.deb
- pkill maliit

Features:

PR#78
Bottom Gestures
- Open cursor mover mode
- Switch between languages/layouts
Modified loading of languages/layouts (would most likely causes bugs and performance issues )

You can also just try out the bottom bar without the other stuffs.

Make your root temporarily writable using UT Tweak Tool System >> Make image writable
Download the modified Keyboard.qml
Copy it to your UT device.
Execute the following commands
- sudo cp /usr/share/maliit/plugins/com/ubuntu/Keyboard.qml /usr/share/maliit/plugins/com/ubuntu/Keyboard_ORIG.qml
- sudo cp <directory of modified Keyboard.qml>/Keyboard.qml /usr/share/maliit/plugins/com/ubuntu/
- pkill maliit

NOTE: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THESE ARE HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL CODES AND HASN'T BEEN TESTED THOROUGHLY SO EXPECT BUGS!

To revert back, you may need to reflash or restore using the backed-up Keyboard.qml file.

Please let me know of any feedback/comments.

domubpkm

@kugiigi

Hello.
I have a NEXUS 5 in RC 58 and I noticed a little by chance that your work has been incorporated ? Isn't that right ? I've been missing this for a while or is it just now ?
I don't know if copy/paste is so fully functional but it's great for you!... and for us users !

kugiigi

@domubpkm Yup it just landed on devel a few days ago and on edge I think yesterday.
Enjoy and provide feedback so that we can improve

CiberSheep

@kugiigi It's really cool. You know that?

domubpkm

@CiberSheep Cool and very helpful !

normandc

@kugiigi
Got the new changes in RC as well. Thank you for this, it is a huge usability improvement to the OSK.