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Native Keyboard

Every mobile app attempts to expand until it includes chat. Those applications which do not are replaced by ones which can.

-- Luke Wroblewski

   

Videos of iOS and Android running the included demo app.

So it's just a fancy keyboard?

You're damn right it is! 👍😊

A cross platform WhatsApp / Messenger / Slack -style keyboard even. For your Cordova app.

OK, let me try this..

Open a command prompt and do:

$ cordova create nativekeyboardtest
$ cd nativekeyboardtest
$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-native-keyboard

.. and for a nicer demo experience you'll also want to add these plugins:

$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-console
$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-actionsheet

.. now copy the contents of our demo over www/index.html, and do one of these:

$ cordova run ios
$ cordova run android

I'm no dummy, gimme details man!

ok ok - OK! The plugin is currently entirely focused on the messenger component, but this will extend into other areas in the future. With that being said, this is the current awesome API:

showMessenger

The bare minimum you need to show the messenger and do something useful with the text a user typed is this (make sure you wait for deviceready to fire):

NativeKeyboard.showMessenger({
  onSubmit: function(text) {
    console.log("The user typed: " + text);
  }
});

There are however many options you can pass in to tweak the appearance and behavior:

option default iOS Android description
onSubmit yes yes A function invoked when the user submits his input. Receives the text as a single property. Make sure your page is UTF-8 encoded so Chinese and Emoji are rendered OK.
onKeyboardWillShow yes no A function invoked when the keyboard is about to pop up. Receives the height as a single property.
onKeyboardDidShow yes yes A function invoked when the keyboard popped up. Receives the height as a single property.
onKeyboardWillHide yes no A function invoked when the keyboard is about to close.
onKeyboardDidHide yes yes A function invoked when the keyboard closed.
onTextChanged yes yes A function invoked when any key is pressed, sends the entire text as response.
autoscrollElement yes yes Highly recommended to pass in if you want to replicate the behavior of the video's above (scroll down when the keyboard opens). Pass in the scrollable DOM element containing the messages, so something like document.getElementById("messageList").
scrollToBottomAfterMessengerShows yes yes If autoscrollElement was set you can also make the list scroll down initially, when the messenger bar (without the keyboard popping up) is shown.
keepOpenAfterSubmit false yes yes Setting this to true is like the video's above: the keyboard doesn't close upon submit.
animated false yes yes Makes the messenger bar slide in from the bottom.
showKeyboard false yes yes Open the keyboard when showing the messenger.
text yes yes The default text set in the messenger input bar.
textColor #444444 yes yes The color of the typed text.
placeholder yes yes Like a regular HTML input placeholder.
placeholderColor #CCCCCC yes yes The color of the placeholder text.
suppressSuggestions true no yes Set this to false to allow predictive text on Android
backgroundColor #F6F6F6 yes yes The background color of the messenger bar.
textViewBackgroundColor #F6F6F6 yes yes The background color of the textview. Looks nicest on Android if it's the same color as the backgroundColor property.
textViewBorderColor #666666 yes no The border color of the textview.
maxChars yes limited Setting this > 0 will make a counter show up on iOS (and ignore superfluous input on Android, for now)
counterStyle "none" yes no Options are: "none", "split", "countdown", "countdownreversed". Note that if maxChars is set, "none" will still show a counter.
type "default" yes no Options are: "default", "decimalpad", "phonepad", "numberpad", "namephonepad", "number", "email", "twitter", "url", "alphabet", "search", "ascii"
appearance "default" yes no Options are: "light", "dark".
secure false yes no disables things like the Emoji keyboard and the Predicive text entry bar
leftButton yes yes See below
rightButton yes yes See below

leftButton

The button on the left is optional and can be used to for instance make a picture, grab a picture from the camera role, shoot a video, .. whatever you fancy, really as the implementation is entirely up to you.

As shown in the video's it's common to present these options as an ActionSheet, either native or a HTML widget.

option default iOS Android description
type yes limited Either "text" (Android only currently), "fontawesome" or "ionicon".
value yes yes Depends on the type. Examples: for "text" use "Send", for "fontawesome" use "fa-battery-quarter", for "ionicon" use "\uf48a" (go to http://ionicons.com, right-click and inspect the icon and use the value you find in :before). Note that some fonticons are not supported as the embedded fonts in the plugin may lag behind a little. So try one of the older icons first.
textStyle "normal" yes yes If type is "text" you can set this to either "normal", "bold" or "italic".
disabledWhenTextEntered false yes yes Set to true to disable the button once text has been entered.
onPress yes yes A function invoked when the button is pressed. Use this button to prompt the user what he wants to do next by for instance rendering an ActionSheet.

rightButton

The button on the right is used to submit the entered text. You don't need to configure this at all if you're happy with the default "Send" label as the entered text itself will be emitted through the onSubmit callback.

option default iOS Android description
type "text" yes yes Either "text", "fontawesome" or "ionicon".
value "Send" yes yes See the description of leftButton.value.
textStyle "normal" yes yes See the description of leftButton.textStyle.
onPress yes yes A function invoked when the button is pressed. Use this to for instance hide the messenger entirely after text was entered by calling NativeKeyboard.hideMessenger().

hideMessenger

It's likely your app only has 1 one page where you want to show the messenger, so you want to hide it when the user navigates away. You can choose to do this either animated (a quick slide down animation) or not.

NativeKeyboard.hideMessenger({
  animated: true // default false
});

showMessengerKeyboard

What if you have previously have shown the messenger and the user dismissed its keyboard, but you want to programmatically pop up the keyboard again? Use this:

NativeKeyboard.showMessengerKeyboard(
    // these functions are optional
    function() { console.log('ok') },
    function(err) { console.log(err)}
);

hideMessengerKeyboard

And if you want to programmatically hide the keyboard (but not the messenger bar), use this:

NativeKeyboard.hideMessengerKeyboard(
    // these functions are optional
    function() { console.log('ok') },
    function(err) { console.log(err)}
);

updateMessenger

Manipulate the messenger while it's open. For instance if you want to update the text programmatically based on what the user typed (by responding to onTextChanged events).

option type iOS Android description
text string yes yes Replace the messenger's text by this. The current text remains if omitted.
caretIndex number yes yes Position the cursor anywhere in the text range. Defaults to the end of the text.
showKeyboard boolean yes yes If false or omitted no changes to the keyboard state are made. 
NativeKeyboard.updateMessenger(
    {
      text: "Text updated! ", // added a space so the user can continue typing
      caretIndex: 5,
      showKeyboard: true
    },
    function() { console.log('updated ok') },
    function(err) { console.log(err)}
);

Notes for iOS

Notes for Android

  • If you're using cordova-android 7.1 or higher, update the plugin to at least 2.0.0 because cordova-android 7.1 has slightly different internals, making installation fail. With older Cordova Android versions you may need to stick to the 1.x version though.
  • Make sure your activity in AndroidManifest.xml has the (default) android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustResize" (or adjustPan) property. Otherwise the inputfield will be hidden when the keyboard pops up.

I like it, hook me up!

This plugin has been a BEAST to implement and its maintenance is killing me already so I need to make this a commercial offering (with a free trial, see below) to keep it afloat. If you have a compelling reason to not pay for an unlocked version let me know and we'll work something out.

  • Look up the ID of the app you want to use the plugin with - you can find it at the top of config.xml and is something like io.cordova.hellocordova (if you have a different staging ID, or iOS and Android ID's are different just send me all of those and you'll get multiple license codes and pay for only one).
  • Send a one-time fee of USD 199 (or EUR 180) to my PayPal account and make sure to include your app ID. Want to use a bankaccount instead? No problem, just contact me at [email protected] for details.
  • You'll quickly receive a license key (and instructions) which you can use to install the plugin.
  • You can now forever use this version and any future version of this plugin for this app without restrictions.

Once the license key (abc in this example) is received, you can add the plugin like this:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-native-keyboard --variable LICENSE=abc

Or if your iOS and Android package ids are different, use this (supported since plugin version 1.5.8):

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-native-keyboard --variable LIC_ANDROID=abc --variable LIC_IOS=xyz

I heard about a trial!?

ALL features are available without a license, but you'll be restricted to 5 minutes of usage. Just indefinitely kill and relaunch the app if you need more time ;)

Can you remove the license check for my prototype apps?

Sure, just add the word 'prototype' (case insensitive) anywhere in your packageid. Example: 'com.mycompany.myclientapp-PROTOTYPE' or 'com.mycompany.prototypes.myclientapp'.