Bug (?) report Android 3.2.77 with external keyboard

[The Tams]

I am using an external keyboard (Tap2) on Android 10 using Pleco 3.2.77. I have input settings set to the device input (google pinyin input) as the Pleco interface does work for me at all*. When completing flash cards in which I need to enter the Hanzi (show definition, input Hanzi) I can type in the hanzi fine, but then if I press return, instead of inputting the answer, it selects the text in the definition.



If I use the mouse to select enter that is ok, but then there are no tabs beside the next button. (side note, I would also love return to 'press' the next button as other external keyboard users have requested)



And if I look up something and come back to the page, the next button is gone too.



I can turn off my tap, and the next button, with its tabs, returns.



Although I am using it with Scrcpy, that doesn't seem to effect the problem. However it doesn't solve it either. If I run Scrcpy with my Tap connected to my Mac using a Hanzi keyboard, the Hanzi don't show up on the phone - they just render as letters. If I use an English keyboard to interface with the android keyboard, that works OK. However, the suggested Hanzi don't have any numbers to select them, I have to switch my Tap into mouse mode, select the Hanzi, press the return key on the virtual keyboard, press the next key on the screen. It sounds like a whinge (maybe it is) but lots of extra mousing about gets irritating when reviewing a hundred words or more especially as it is a little fiddly to get the tap to go out of mouse sometimes. Having the Return key working as anticipated would be a boon, but only really if I also go the rest of the tabs etc back - then I wouldn't have to mouse.

If anyone else has suggestions of work arounds I can implement myself that would be great.

Thanks!
Tams



*Defaults to having the handwriting up no matter how many times I close it which leads to having to press and extra button for every card, entering the two or more characters separately isn't how I type and I want to work how I actually write most fo the time, return does not move to the next box, writing each one separately greatly increases other taps because of how the Tap accesses the number keys etc).

 

[mikelove]

We haven't really spent any time on Android keyboard support, to be honest - it's a pretty tiny % of our user base and it's further limited by the fact that there isn't a single clear standard to build around (no one dominant way of using Android apps with keyboard control - you've got external Bluetooth keyboards and convertible tablets and Chromebooks and desktops with emulators and so on).

We certainly do plan to revisit that once we've got our Mac app out and are starting to get a better idea of how people might want to use Pleco with keyboards, but it's unlikely we'll do much on this until then.

 

[The Tams]

If we have already bought Pleco for the phone, will we have access to the Mac version as well? Doing flash card study on a phone is the pits. When I started using Pleco on the phone for my flash card study I thought I needed to get new glasses, but swapping to the better distance of a screen my eyes go back to normal after a couple of days - not to mention the headaches caused by neck angle...
How do you know how many users are using external keyboards? Is that data collected by the app somehow? I used Pleco for a long time before I even saw the forums.

 

[mikelove]

If we have already bought Pleco for the phone, will we have access to the Mac version as well?

The tentative plan is to charge for access to some functions. How much and which ones is TBD, but we can't really justify taking the time to build + maintain a good Mac port if it isn't generating some new sales for us, and we don't think offering a free Mac port for existing customers will generate much marginal revenue.

How do you know how many users are using external keyboards? Is that data collected by the app somehow?

We don't collect metrics in the app on external keyboard usage, but we know only a tiny % of our Android customers are using it on tablets / Chromebooks and we don't get the impression there are very many people using external keyboards with phones.