Creating Keyboard Extensions

This is the talk I gave at the May 2018 Tokyo iOS Meetup

Transcript

1. IOS KEYBOARD EXTENSIONS TOKYO IOS MEETUP
2. TOKYO IOS MEETUP @JOHNESTROPIA Developer since 2008 (mostly Mobile apps) Principal Engineer @ Other hobby projects http://github.com/JohnEstropia/CoreStore
3. TOKYO IOS MEETUP AGENDA ▸ Creating Keyboard Extensions ▸ Pitfalls ▸ Tips ▸ App Demo
4. TOKYO IOS MEETUP CREATING A KEYBOARD EXTENSION
5. TOKYO IOS MEETUP GENERATED FILE Just a UIViewController subclass
6. TOKYO IOS MEETUP CREATING A KEYBOARD EXTENSION Add keyboard buttons here as you normally would
7. TOKYO IOS MEETUP UIINPUTVIEWCONTROLLER Same as self.view
8. TOKYO IOS MEETUP CREATING A KEYBOARD EXTENSION Middle-man for the UITextField/UITextVIew
9. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #1 ▸ There is no perfect way to access the UITextInput’s instance But this is a good thing security-wise
10. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #1 ▸ There is no perfect way to access the UITextInput’s complete text or its length ▸ But there is a workaround that works “most of the time”
11. TOKYO IOS MEETUP
12. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABCDEF
13. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABCDEF
14. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABC DEF So to get the complete text we just append these two together. Right? Right??
15. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABC? DEF
16. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABC ?DEF
17. TOKYO IOS MEETUP ABC?D EF
18. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #1 ▸ There is no perfect way to access the UITextInput’s complete text or its length ▸ Some characters such as (?) and (!) have special treatment! (bug?)
19. TOKYO IOS MEETUP CREATING BUTTONS
20. TOKYO IOS MEETUP CREATING BUTTONS
21. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PLAYING CLICK SOUNDS protocol
22. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #2 ▸ Keyboard “Full Access” is unfortunately needed even for minor functions ▸ Play clicking sounds ▸ Read from or write to a shared NSUserDefaults ▸ Accessing the clipboard
23. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #2 ▸ Keyboard “Full Access” is unfortunately needed even for minor functions Info.plist
24. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #2 ▸ Keyboard “Full Access” is unfortunately needed even for minor functions
25. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #3 ▸ Apps can reject custom keyboards (e.g. for security) UIApplicationDelegate
26. TOKYO IOS MEETUP PITFALL #4 ▸ Memory allotted to Keyboard extensions is severely limited (~30MB) ▸ Avoid using too many nib files / image resources
27. TIPS
28. TOKYO IOS MEETUP TIP #1 ▸ Debugging a Keyboard in a specific locale will run any app in that locale ▸ No need to change the device language!
29. TOKYO IOS MEETUP
30. TOKYO IOS MEETUP TIP #2 ▸ You are not restricted to a single character per input
31. TOKYO IOS MEETUP TIP #3 ▸ The Globe button logic can be simulated in a single line!
32. TOKYO IOS MEETUP TIP #3 ▸ The Globe button logic can be simulated in a single line!
33. TOKYO IOS MEETUP TIP #4 ▸ You can check the "Allow full access" status by twiddling with the clipboard
34. TOKYO IOS MEETUP
35. TOKYO IOS MEETUP When the user's clipboard is empty
36. APP DEMO
37. TOKYO IOS MEETUP WHAT I'VE LEARNED ▸ There's a ton of untapped use-cases in third-party apps that can be improved with custom keyboards ▸ Think of them as plugins
38. THANKS @JohnEstropia