Some times when one wants to start writing, the keyboard gets locked on default layer; and tapping shift key will not change the layer. The layer can only be changed by tapping backspace or space-bar then tapping shift.
At other times, when one wants to start writing, the key keyboard begins to switch back and forth between the default and shift layer. You have to wait for it to finish dancing, or tap space-bar or any key to interrupt the dance, then delete the output and switch to the layer you want to start typing.
Up to Keyman 15.0.266
Android 8.1
Tecno POP 2
Google Notebook app
Screenshot: Just starting to write. The keyboard should be in shift layer but is locked in default layer. And suggestions doesn’t match the layer.
Thanks for the report. I haven’t observed this in my testing so it’s hard to know what is causing this; we will keep an eye out for error reports coming through in case there is anything there. Alternatively, if you are able to identify a set of steps that triggers this issue reproducibly, that would be really helpful!
One cannot predict when it will happen, but it usually happens at the beginning of writing. For example, after switching from another keyboard to Keyman or when starting to write for the first time in a page or in an app.
If I’m the only one experiencing this, then I suspect it should be from the keyboard and not the app. Do you mind looking at the code in the current released version, especially lines 13 to 36?
Apologies for the slow reply – I have been on leave!
The keyboard looks good. So we need to keep watching this to see if we can get a reproduction of the issue. We do have another fix in the pipeline relating to longpress, which perhaps may be related (see #6984).
No difference sir. I’m now using 15.0.268 but the issue is still there. I wanted to comment on Facebook, but the keyboard was locked on the default layer, and shift key could not switch the layer. Here is a screenshot of start of sentence in Google Notebook app:
OK. We’ll need to try and figure out what is triggering this issue. @darcy, are you able to work with @katelem to try and trace the trigger for this problem?
@makara and @darcy
Yes. It doesn’t get stuck again, but it still goes back and forth between default and shift layer. This happens when I use the backspace key to delete many characters at a time. At the end of deleting, it begins to go back and forth between the two layers, and I have to wait for it to finish before I continue typing.
Please note that there is significant improvement. It doesn’t happen as frequently as it did in the previous version.
@katelem, no problem, we’ll continue to investigate here.
@makara, could you or Bharani take a look at trying to reproduce the layer dance that @katelem describes, reproducing as far as possible his environment and keyboard setup on Android? It may be related to start-of-sentence detection.
Tested on Pixel 4 emulator running Android 8.1 using Keyman 15.0.271 stable. While in Google Keep (I was not able to find Google Notebook app specified above) with Obolo Chwerty keyboard enabled, I was able to use the keyboard as usual. No keyboard dancing observed at any point in the process of testing neither in app nor as a system keyboard.
