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.

Cool, but does it scale?

Lol.. wut?

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.
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)}
);

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)}
);

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.
• Send a one-time fee of USD 199 (or EUR 185) 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.

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 ;)