Source link: https://github.com/alanszlosek/android-keyboard

Why

I'm thrifty, with an LG Optimus V in my hand. It's got a 3.2" screen which makes typing on the standard Android keyboard a frustrating process. So I'm modifying the SoftKeyboard sample project, and experimenting with ways to arrange the keys differently such that they can be made larger.

View screenshot.png for a preview. Though, it's slightly out of date from what I describe below.

Ideas

The stock keyboard contains as many as 10 keys on a row. This is too many for my fingers to handle, so this project has only 7 keys per row.

To do this, I've doubled up on some letters. "q" and "w" are on the same key, same for "ui", "op", "as" and "kl". Long-press those (longer than 200ms) to get the secondary letter. Also, the "#" switches to symbols.

Just for the record: Also thought of having 2 spacebars, normal that obeys most logical completion, and another that ignores and leaves word as typed.

To Do

The suggestions portion of the UI needs some major love. Copy style from built-in android keyboard
Use long-press codes as a tree of possible predictions ... to maximize effectiveness of condensed keys

Done For now

Finish modifying layout of the symbols keys.

Nah

Try the alternative method of accessing keys that are hidden by the right side of the screen.

Bugs

Suggestions should backtrack to the previous word characters (regex) and them use that for suggestions, not the letter you just typed after backspacing.
Backspace should operate from current cursor position. There are edge cases where it doesn't.

Building

Follow the instructions here for existing projects:

https://developer.android.com/tools/projects/projects-cmdline.html

Notes

Example project had some quirkiness. Namely regarding the caps lock key. Or maybe I introduced those bugs. Either way:

Thinking that when the keyboard first shows, it should check the shift key state for the current input control (view?). I have an internal boolean for isShifted, which I should set to the cursor shift key state.