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

Hello Everyone,

I'm starting this thread because I wanted to share my ideas about improving the OSK in UT.
Back in the Canonical days, I suggested to use the space key for controlling the text cursor.
It was a real joy when I learned that Canonical did implemented it which we can now enjoy with UBports.
And I want continue with that idea and improve or extend its functionality.

At the moment, I have two prototypes.

1. [Swipe to trigger cursor mover]
   Instead of the current "Press and Hold" gesture to trigger the cursor mover, I made it to work with just a horizontal swipe in the space key. For me, this gesture is more natural while typing unlike the current one which will some kind of disrupt your flow by long pressing before swiping. There's a catch though because there's more chance of accidental trigger especially for those who tend to drag fingers while typing. My experience so far is good though and did an accidental trigger just once.
   Demo Video

2. [Swipe to switch OSK language]
   This one adds a functionality to change OSK language via swipe in the space key. Some people needs multiple OSK layout/language enabled and it could be a bit hassle to switch between them especially if you have more than 2...remember emoji? yeah that counts I personally don't have this problem so I can''t attest if this one would be really helpful. And also, at the moment, emoji kinda breaks it because it has a very different layout which doesn't have the space key. I'm also planning to propose a new layout for emoji
   Demo Video

Now I don't have a concrete plan yet on how I will propose these. I'm thinking of adding a Gesture section in the settings app so users can customize the gestures and which functionality they want for them. For example, you can set "PressAndHold" for Cursor Mover then "Horizontal Swipe" for Language switch. But that could be too much settings? can't say yet.

EXPAND IT FURTHER!
Currently, I have another idea to expand this idea further and I'm trying to do a quick hack for it.
The idea is to also use the "cursor mover" feature for text selections/manipulations. My initial thought is to use double click/tap (without releasing) to start the text selection. I would also like to put Copy, paste, select all buttons above the OSK. I want to see and use it first in action before thinking of the best way to implement these gestures. Unfortunately, I can't even do the first step yet which is to enable text selection from the OSK and it seems like I have to modify the C++ part of maliit and recompile which I am not familiar enough.

Any thoughts, opinion, violent reaction, help maybe?

FUN FACT: When I got the idea of the "Space key cursor mover", it was a "Eureka" moment for me and I thought I was the first one in the world to come up with that idea. Then days after that, I saw the exact same functionality on my friend's LG G3. At least it was my original idea and it just happened someone got it first LOL

Some screenshots

Cursor mover mode

Selection Mode

I won't mention anyone specifically but I'm very thankful to this whole community!
It's been great to be a part of this

@Lakotaubp There will indeed be a huge wave of new users once PinePhone is generally released.
But I think many of those people expects a traditional linux OS and many will complain about UBports being "limited" and might go to other OS.
But in any case, this will be big for UT and I'm pretty we'll still get legit happy new users

And I'm about to be brave with a heart and buy a PinePhone

PinePhone will be my next daily driver!

Anyway, I wonder if it's running the latest codes from the edge channel. I see the system indicator still having the user list.

@PINE64 That sounds really promising. I might get one just to do some mobile OS-hopping

This is a known issue on the Pinephone which affects apps that use secondary windows. As a workaround, install UT Tweak Tool and switch to windowed mode

I'm honestly not satisfied yet. The behavior of horizontal swipes might be erratic with one hand.
And I really want to add a better trigger than just the current "press and hold" the space bar.
Hopefully, I can work on it very soon so it'll be included in OTA-11.

Enjoy everyone! and don't be hesitant to nitpick so we can improve

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

@tnywatkns Sadly, Pinephone's issue is a bit different as it has its own set of issues. The issue seems to be fixed in devel now but that's only for android-based devices so the pinephone might need to wait a bit longer for a proper fix.

Are you sure are in stable channel? Because I think I read somewhere that there seems to be a problem with suspension in devel related to repowerd I believe.

@dcmken Did you have UT in the emmc and also UT in the SD card?

Regarding the factory image, the images that can be downloaded and flashed are always the factory image as far as I know. It seems that they haven't fixed it yet.

Yeah, I noticed that in Cloud Music, meta data are not displayed in media hub/sound indicator during playback. I have no experience with media hub yet but maybe I can help with this project once I'm with the current project I'm working on.

Anyway, I wonder how the library was made if Spotify doesn't of it. Right now, I'm just worried you put a lot of effort in this then Spotify will suddenly put it down. At least, maybe we should find a way to hide the downloaded songs because in its current state, I can basically download all songs I want and cancel my account LOL

@tnywatkns It's not working on my pinephone as well. The songs are downloaded fine but the playback isn't working. Playing the downloaded song in the music app works though.

You can set a custom ringtone in the settings app without copying them to the system directory. However, custom notification tone is not yet officially supported but you can do it in UT Tweak Tool which basically does the same thing as you did

This is a known issue on the Pinephone which affects apps that use secondary windows. As a workaround, install UT Tweak Tool and switch to windowed mode

Spotify offered me 3 months of free premium subscription so I was able to test this
It's awesome that a very mainstream app can have a native app. However, I do have a concern about its legality though. It looks like it downloads songs in OGG format before playback and I can even copy those OGG and play them with the music app. Is that even possible on Android and iOS for offline playback? Also, perhaps you can check how Cloud Music does the streaming. It seems to me that it does actual streaming and not downloads the whole songs first. Well I'm not exactly sure but I tried looking for its downloaded files but I did no see anything.

In any case, great job and good luck!

As mentioned, apt isn't really supported in UT because its rootfs is mounted as read-only. You can still use apt though and even resize the rootfs if you really want and accept the risk and consequences. In general, using apt won't break your device unless maybe you remove a vital package in the system. OTA updates may remove all your changes in the root or in rare instances perhaps have conflict with your changes and break your system.

Anyway, if you really want to resize your rootfs, you can search in this forum, I believe there's a post with the commands on how to do it.

I think I'll also join testing this with my "new" Nexus 5 which I don't use anymore because of an issue with the modem and charging.