can pykeys see key presses from external keyboards?

mikael

@jamm, it is possible if you are writing in a Pythonista ui.TextView. It is probably possible if you are using Pythonista custom keyboard. It is not possible in some random other app with a random keyboard.

What are you after?

jamm

I want to make it so when the keyboard is active it is inserting a tag before and after the text whenever I press return. I only use the external keyboard, never the on screen keyboard.

JonB

Are you talking about within pythonista, or in other apps?

If you are talking about within pythonista, You can implement textfield_did_change to change what is entered.

mikael

@jamm, as @JonB said, except look at the def textview_should_change(self, textview, range, replacement) method of the ui.TextView delegate, where you can see that the replacement is \n and can use the range to place the tags in the view.

jamm

How can I debug that this is being called? The alert and insert_text functions don’t have an effect. The only thing that happens is it appends “o” only for key presses to the soft keyboard. I’m editing Text Effects.py

def textview_should_change(self, textview, range, replacement):
	keyboard.insert_text("r")
	dialogs.alert("s")
	return True

def no_effect(text):
	keyboard.insert_text("p")
	dialogs.alert("q")
	return text + "o"

cvp

@jamm As @JonB asked, do you want to write a custom keyboard for another app than Pythonista? As your code uses keyboard module, we could believe it.
If you only want to intercept a keyboard key in a Pythonista app, in a TextView, then @mikael advice is ok.

jamm

In another app I want it to form tags around the text every time enter is pressed. It seems impossible due to limitations.

cvp

@jamm I don't know with an external keyboard because I don't have it for testing but, with the virtual keyboard, I think it is possible, but I may be wrong

cvp

@jamm please try this quick and dirty script as custom keyboard in any app.
You will see automatic insert of BEF at begin and END at end of line where you tap return.

#!python3
import keyboard
import ui

class KeyboardInfoView (ui.View):
	def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
		super().__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
		self.background_color = '#00436e'
		
	def kb_should_insert(self, text):
		# You can modify the inserted text here:
		if ord(text) == 10:	# return key pressed
			before,after = keyboard.get_input_context()
			keyboard.backspace(len(before))
			keyboard.insert_text('BEF'+before+'END')
		return text

if __name__ == '__main__':
	v = KeyboardInfoView()
	keyboard.set_view(v, mode='minimized')

cvp

Code is not fully ok.
In some apps, the "before" part of context is the entire line, in other apps, no.
Thus, code must be improved. Take it as first draft.

cvp

A little bit better, no backspace, but still only ok if "before" = entire line before cursor

#!python3
import keyboard
import ui

class KeyboardInfoView (ui.View):
	def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
		super().__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
		self.background_color = '#00436e'
		
	def kb_should_insert(self, text):
		# You can modify the inserted text here:
		if ord(text) == 10:	# return key pressed
			before,after = keyboard.get_input_context()
			# hoping that before = entire line before cursor
			keyboard.move_cursor(-len(before))
			keyboard.insert_text('BEF')
			keyboard.move_cursor(len(before))
			keyboard.insert_text('END')
			#keyboard.backspace(len(before))
			#keyboard.insert_text('BEF'+before+'END')
		return text

if __name__ == '__main__':
	v = KeyboardInfoView()
	keyboard.set_view(v, mode='minimized')

mcriley821

Might be worth checking into key commands

http://omz-software.com/pythonista/docs/ios/ui.html#ui.View.key_command

cvp

@mcriley821 key_command is not called in this case and, anyway, does not allow to modify entry, and surely not in an other app than Pythonista

trey

I was interested in this same question and created a forum account intending to ask it when I saw this thread already active.

So, I just tried the “BEF END” test script above (the latter one, “A little bit better), and it works as advertised in some programs (such as the Pythonista editor itself) when you tap “return” on the onscreen keyboard, except for one thing—it makes the text view jump down so that the typed text is offscreen.

In other apps (such as typing into this very text field in the forum using Safari), it only partially works with the software keyboard—it inserts BEF, but never END.

But with an external keyboard, it does absolutely nothing that I can see. Well, it does do one thing: my standard layout is Dvorak, but switching to Pythonista keyboard, the HW keyboard becomes QWERTY again.

I tried the key_command mentioned, too, and it is never called.

Btw, the problem I was hoping to solve was a multilingual keyboard—using switchable input methods like Vim and Emacs offer, or RFC 1345 encoding, letting me type multilingual text without having to learn the native keyboard layouts for each script.

cvp

@trey said:

—it makes the text view jump down so that the typed text is offscreen.

I don't have this problem, but don't forget that my little script was only written to show what could be possible, sure it is not bug free 🙄

cvp

@trey said:

—it inserts BEF, but never END

You're right, it is a bug more

cvp

@trey said:

switching to Pythonista keyboard, the HW keyboard becomes QWERTY again.

Normal, Pythonista keyboard is always QWERTY

cvp

@trey said:

with an external keyboard, it does absolutely nothing that I can see.

I can't test anything, I don't have any external keyboard

cvp

@trey said:

using switchable input methods

Could you give an example, please

JonB

Did the input_changed method get called at all?

Honestly, it is not clear that the kb would get callbacks from an external keyboard -- i can't find anything in iOS docs that says it would. Since a kb extension is for converting user interaction into text, I can see reasons for not passing direct entry through a separate set of callbacks. Also, if the kb is not on screen, I'm not sure it is being called at all.