Closed Bug 943692 Opened 11 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Need button to hide virtual keyboard

Categories

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

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(ux-b2g:2.2)

RESOLVED WONTFIX
ux-b2g 2.2

People

(Reporter: BenB, Unassigned)

References

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

Reproduction:
1. Webpage that contains only a <textarea> (with typical large size of textfield), and "OK" button underneath at the bottom of the page. Nothing else on the page.
2. Tap into the <textarea>
3. Try to click the "OK" button

Actual result:
Step 2: Virtual keyboard opens, as it should.
However, it covers part of the webpage. I can see only a part of the textfield, and no "OK" button
Step 3: Almost impossible. I need to find an empty area of the webpage that is *not* the <textfield>, in order to get the virtual keyboard to hide. If I can't find an empty space (as in the above mentioned webpage), I'm toast. If the empty space is above the <textfield>, I have to scroll up, tap there, then scroll down again to see the button. Extremely cumbersome.

Expected result:
2 different mechanisms should prevent this obvious problem:

1. A button on the virtual keyboard to hide the keyboard. See Android keyboard, which has that button.
2. When the virtual keyboard appears, it does *not overlap* the webpage, but rather the system shrinks the webpage viewport ("viewport" as defined by CSS spec).
Again, this is what Android does.

Importance:
2. above (viewport shrinking) is critical in making the virtual keyboard usable. As is stands, the virtual keyboard is unusable and cumbersome highly annoying due to the lack of this.
(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #0)
> 2. When the virtual keyboard appears, it does *not overlap* the webpage, but
> rather the system shrinks the webpage viewport ("viewport" as defined by CSS
> spec).

I'm wrong. Solution 2 above is already implemented. Sorry!

This leaves only:
> 1. A button on the virtual keyboard to hide the keyboard. See Android
> keyboard, which has that button.
Severity: major → normal
Summary: Virtual keyboard is constantly in the way, overlapping the UI of the webpage → Need button to hide virtual keyboard
1. is addressed by a swipe gesture from top to bottom of keyboard. It will then disappear.
> 1. is addressed by a swipe gesture from top to bottom of keyboard. It will then disappear.

Thanks. That's nice to know, but there's no way to know that. It's not discoverable.
Attached image ffos-keyboard.png
Virtual keyboard over a <textarea>.
No page UI visible, can't access any webpage button/UI.
Difficult to unhide the keyboard by clicking elsewhere, because there is no "elsewhere", hardly anything visible outside the text area.
> swipe gesture from top to bottom of keyboard. It will then disappear

FWIW: No, that doesn't work either. I tried both on Firefox OS Simulator and on a real phone (geeksphone), and all I achieve with this gesture is to hit random keys.

But it wouldn't be a solution for this bug anyway, as mentioned in comment 3.
Which version are you testing the gesture on? It's been enabled since v1.2 (and works against master because I just tested this).
Jan, the gesture is irrelevant here, see comment 3.
Please continue this discussion in bug 805586.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
That's a meta-bug, and didn't fix what's requested here.
Please stop deflecting my bugs. I filed these, because they are serious usability issues. Deflecting or hindering my bug reports only serves to harm Firefox OS.
Blocks: 805586
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: DUPLICATE → ---
No, that bug describes exactly the same problem as you've described here. If the patch in that bug is not good enough or bugs, then please continue there.
We don't beat on in FIXED bug reports, we file new ones, and reference them.
Status: REOPENED → NEW
Casey, any comments?

This is what Rik said:

<Rik>	 janjongboom: alternate ways to close the keyboard: useful. swipe to close keyboard: not useful. I think the last comment is not contradicting my point of view
<Rik>	 janjongboom: imho of course
Flags: needinfo?(kyee)
I discussed with Vivien and he had a pretty good idea. Now that we can change the keyboard layout via the notification tray, we don't really need the "globe" button anymore. So we could re-use this space for a "dismiss keyboard button".
Based on my usage of keyboard on Android I use the globe button a *lot* more than the dismiss keyboard button (because constant switching between English and Dutch), but I'm a n=1 :p
There is a first run tutorial that provides instruction on how to dismiss the keyboard with the swipe gesture.   I do agree though that its difficult to remember the swipe gesture, has not worked in all cases for me and despite having instruction, took me a while to figure out how it worked.

Flagging Carrie for more information as she might have some ideas about how we could improve this.
Flags: needinfo?(kyee)
> despite having instruction, took me a while to figure out how it worked.

That makes 2 of us, it didn't work for me either.
The first run tutorial has been removed in bug 925318, so that doesn't work anymore.
Flags: needinfo?(kyee)
But now what is the solution? Are we able to hide the keyboard?
It looks like Carrie was never actually flagged on this, and this is quite old. Omega, can you see if this bug is still relevant in the context of 2.0 and later and, if not, resolve it as invalid? Thank you!
Flags: needinfo?(kyee) → needinfo?(ofeng)
User can dismiss keyboard by long pressing space bar in 2.0. So let's flag this resolved as invalid.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago10 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(ofeng)
Resolution: --- → INVALID
This is a hidden trick, but not discoverable by a normal user.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
Have you tried it on 2.0? It is pretty discoverable since the space bar has an icon to indicate it.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago10 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
So, that would be FIXED, then.
Resolution: INVALID → FIXED
Re-opening. I've seen that icon and never knew it meant that you could do this.

I think there's a very low chance that icon means "long press to close keyboard" to anyone except the people who were involved in adding that feature.

We need to do something better.

Just for information, does the swipe gesture referenced by Casey in comment #15 still exist?
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
In my opinion swipe gesture was better - much faster, allows user to hide keyboard immediately when it takes longer to pressing space for a while. 

It is not bad solution to provide both - then everyone will have chance to choose solution which is more comfortable for them.
(In reply to mac from comment #26)
> It is not bad solution to provide both - then everyone will have chance to
> choose solution which is more comfortable for them.
I'm not gonna comment on the UX solution but providing both solutions has a real cost in terms of code maintenance, more tests to run, potentially preventing other UX work, etc. It has to be considered when choosing the solution.
Thanks Rik, you are right there is always a cost to any change. Let's focus on the right solution for users though.

Another question - are you saying the keyboard code in particular has a higher cost of change? Does it need some work to be more maintainable and future-friendly?
I did a Twitter survey yesterday, just for fun. We should consider some of the suggestions, like having waffles come out :D

https://twitter.com/dietrich/status/507565246286802944
As evidenced by this thread, there hasn't been much UX work on this at all. Noting for 2.2 UX backlog and for Omega.
ux-b2g: --- → 2.2
> I think there's a very low chance that icon means "long press to close keyboard" to anyone except the people who were involved in adding that feature. We need to do something better.

Thank you!
Status: REOPENED → NEW
Firefox OS is not being worked on
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago6 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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