Popups not working right

[klausw]

There's a known issue with Android P, where popup windows cannot extend beyond the keyboard window. This affects the "Settings" key alert popup which isn't properly visible, and the long-press mini keyboard that's used for entering alternate characters.

I had made an attempt to fix this in commit e3179cefc92de6f3b66667c192f82aa637b279b0 (in v1.40.2 Alpha), but reverted that in commit 799a79cfbca8de649fd5133d6b02ac28ec3157dd (in v1.40.4 Alpha) since it led to popups being truncated on all versions, i.e. the punctuation popup for the "." (period) key in the 4-row layout.

As a new partial workaround, commit d7cde35a39244589310c8eadef542941ba8224f4 (in v1.40.4 Alpha) changes the settings button to launch the preferences dialog directly, bypassing the previous "settings" alert. If you want to change the input method, use the system button in the soft key area next to the "home" and "app list" buttons.

If you're still having issues with popups, please follow up on this bug, but please be very specific. Include your Android version, the Hacker's Keyboard version, and the specific effect that you're seeing.

Possible issues include:

• popup extends past the left or right edge of the keyboard (this should be fixed as of v1.40.4 Alpha)

• popup is missing entirely, or cut off at the top edge of the keyboard

• popup shows up too low, staying completely inside the keyboard area but hard to use due to being covered by your finger (that's currently the expected behavior on Android P)

Sorry about that, but I'm unsure how/if I'll be able to fix this since it's a system issue.

Note that I cannot simply revert the published keyboard to a previous version. The current Play Store rules REQUIRE that I target Android 8.0 (API level 26) for all new APK uploads to the Play Store.

If you're able to sideload apps, please try fetching an APK from the GitHub releases page and let me know if any of the older versions there works better for you.

[klausw]

Quick update - I've been working on a really nasty hack to try to work around this issue by adding a transparent area on top of the suggestions bar, and it does seem to fix the popups on Android P as well as behaving OK on older systems. Unfortunately it has the side effect of crashing and/or deadlocking, i.e. being unable to exit the settings menu after changing suggestion preferences. So that isn't quite shippable yet.

If you're very curious, I've uploaded my current experiment to the branch https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/tree/wip-transp-candidates , but I don't really recommend using that in this state.

I'll see if I can get this working better, and am still hoping for a better idea that's less awful.

[thereoriganalsky]

I believe I am seeing this same issue.? I will try posting some screenshots about it. The only difference between picture 1 and picture 2 is having popup with keypress enables. This problem only occurs on the top row where the suggestion bar is. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1DyEcSl_um1XBeFP7As8eRX3kqyQO8qCp Will send more details if needed. P.S. please add the word keypress to the English dictionary

[Lamieur]

I'm on Android 8.1 vel Oreo and there was never any problem until the last week's update. With the 1.40.1 official release, I couldn't type anything (I rely heavily on popups from the top row, which are below the finger now).

So I enabled the beta in Play Store, which I believe downloaded 1.40.3 version which was ok. Some popup edges were outside the screen to the left/right, but only the very edges, so it was perfectly usable.

And today we got a new update that broke it again. I understand trying to support Android 9/Pie, but it shouldn't completely break the program for the other 99% of today's users :/ If it's impossible to select the method at run time, maybe it's time to split off a classic version in the store? :)

[klausw]

@Lamieur - I cannot split off a classic version for the store. The popups broke for all Android versions due to updating the target API level from 16 to 26. Specifically, API level 22 (Lollipop MR1) is the first broken versions where the popups no longer extend above the keyboard area, though this isn't mentioned in the release notes. Play Store requires all newly uploaded APKs to use target API level 26 (see here), so there is no way to revert back to the old behavior by just uploading an old version or similar.

In the alphas, I had tried to disable clipping for popups, that did allow popups to extend above the keyboard area on Android versions older than P, but as you noticed they clip at the left and right screen edges. That's also unacceptable, for example the frequently used . (Period) popup in the 4-row layout was missing essential punctuation. I'm investigating if it's possible to use this clipping-disabled mode combined with code changes to adjust the popup placement.

This is separate to the Android P issue. The nasty hack I mentioned above would potentially fix the popups for all Android versions, but since that isn't really working yet I'll see if I can make a separate fix for the older Android versions.

I understand people's frustrations with this, and I'm grumpy about it myself. It's already taken me a bunch of time to try to track down what's happening, and there don't seem to be any easy fixes. Please be patient, I'll try to get it sorted out. But fair warning, considering the old codebase (the AOSP keyboard dates back to 2009 and I forked it in 2011), there may well be a point where it's no longer reasonably possible to keep up with changing Play Store requirements, at which point this project will need to be retired.

[klausw]

@Lamieur and others, could you try v1.40.6 from https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/releases or the test opt-in version on Play Store? I think I found a workaround for the horizontally clipped popups such as the . key punctuation.

Expected behavior for v1.40.6 is that Android O and older should have working popups again that extend above the keyboard area and don't get clipped horizontally. For Android P, popups are forced to stay inside the keyboard area since it can't draw outside that region. If you see it working differently, please let me know, including the effect you're seeing and your Android and Hacker's Keyboard versions.

[klausw]

I've heard from a few people that the popups are fixed for Android O and older, so I've pushed v1.40.6 live.

[Lamieur]

1.40.6 is the same as before. Top 2 rows have popups under the finger, this is me pressing 9:

[klausw]

@Lamieur - thanks for pointing it out. Sigh, v1.40.6 unintentionally enabled the Android P workaround for Android O MR1 (8.1, API level 27) also. This should be fixed in v1.40.7 and commit 7b50b874c0a5e78be49103dede457f133191c5a7.

[Lamieur]

Confirmed, 1.40.7 works again on Android 8.1 \o/

Thanks a lot for taking time to keep support for "old" versions.

(I hope a solution for 9+ is found soon, too!)

[m3toh]

@klausw I think there is a solution for the popups and dialog on Android P you can look at the AnySoftKeyboard , i have tried AnySoftKeyboard on Android P, the setting dialog and mini keyboard works fine and shows outside the keyboard area without problem .

[Yowlen]

This issue affects type=TEXT|AUTO_COMPLETE|NO_SUGGESTIONS , at least on Android 7.0, which is used by the Edit Shortcut dialogs in Nova Launcher.

I should note that I haven't had any issues that I know of for any other input types here on Android 7.0, at least for the latest version. Past versions since this issue first appeared did affect other modes, but this version seems relatively clean otherwise.

[hoyalu]

[…] Play Store requires all newly uploaded APKs to use target API level 26 (see here), so there is no way to revert back to the old behavior by just uploading an old version or similar.

What I didn't understand so far: Is going back to an API level below 26 technically impossible for Android 9 or just not allowed by Google's Play Store rules? Until today, I had no idea that Hacker's Keyboard was available there and I would be very happy to find a version on F-Droid that's working for Android 9 / LineageOS 16.0.

[noozoo]

I still have this problem, especially in the top row of keys. The alternatives (i.e. ! instead of 1) show up right below my finger so I can't see them.. Perhaps they could drop down a bit lower? Samsung Galaxy S8+ Android 9, kernel 4.4.153-18800027 Hacker's keyboards should be the latest version (not sure how to check)

[frederiiiic]

Same issue on FairPhone 3, Android 9. Hacker Keyboard v1.41.1.