888076 - [keyboard] need a mozKeyboard method to re-focus the keyboard

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Keyboard, defect)

Description

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

When the user is switching keyboard layouts and switches to a layout that uses a different input method than the current layout we don't have any way to initialize the new input method. We need a way to use the mozKeyboard API to request that we be sent the current state of the input field, just as if the user had just focused the input field for the first time.

Currently, most layouts use the Latin input method. But we do have a couple of keyboard layouts (Arabic, Hebrew) that do not use it.  So curretnly, if the user switches from English to or from Arabic, the best we can do is to hide the keyboard after the switch and force the user to refocus the input field to resume input.

I don't think any of our 1.0.1 or 1.1 builds will ship to markets that use non-latin keyboards, so this isn't an urgent bug, but it would still be really nice to fix.

Maybe navigator.mozKeyboard.refocus() is what we need? A method to behave exactly as if the user had just tapped in the input field.

Comment 1

[David Flanagan [:djf]]

Yuan: would this be a good bug for you?

Comment 2

[Yuan Xulei [:yxl] (Leave from May 18)]

Yes, it is good bug for me. But I think `refocus` is kind of hacking. 

Sometimes we may need to keep the keyboard state after switching keyboard. `refocus` will force the keyboard to reset its state.

What is the specific information needed after the user switches to other IMEs? Will it be enough to provide methods to retrieve the selection range and text content of the input field? I pefer to the methods of retrieving the current state of the input field rather than `refocus`.

Comment 3

[Yuan Xulei [:yxl] (Leave from May 18)]

The new keyboard API should cover the requirement.