KeyboardKit 9.0 RC 1
KeyboardKit 9.0 Release Candidate 1 is out! 🚀 This article will take a look at all the new things that will make KeyboardKit better than ever before, and how to best upgrade from KeyboardKit 8.
TLDR;
If you find this post too long (which is a great thing) let’s sum up the most important features:
The keyboard is now able to both float and be collapsed on iPad. Local autocomplete lets you use 3rd party AI tools (Claude is first out) for next word prediction. Callouts are easier to use and look better than before. Dictation is a lot easier to use. Emoji is better localized and the emoji keyboard supports search & scrolling through categories. Haptic feedback is lighter when typing. Localization adds support for 🇦🇺 English (Australia) and 🇨🇦 English (Canada), bringing the number of supported locales up to 70. Hey, there’s so much in this release that even the TLDR; became too long to read.
Besides all the new features, KeyboardKit has been cleaned up and polished, making it a lot easier to use. Some changes have been postponed for later, to avoid making the release too big, so there are even more great things in the pipline for the future.
Release Candidate Phase
The KeyboardKit 9 Release Candidate process will be more rigorous than for minor updates, since so much is new and has changed. KeyboardKit 9 is scheduled for late November release, so make sure to give the RC a go, and reach out if you find any bugs or have any thoughts about the release.
KeyboardKit 8 Migration Guide
When migrating from KeyboardKit 8 to 9, first upgrade to the last 8.9 version and fix all deprecation warnings that you may receive. This will help you prepare for KeyboardKit 9.
After upgrading to KeyboardKit 9, it will provide you with migration deprecations that will help you adjust your code, if needed. You may also find that you upgrade without any warnings whatsoever.
The legacy migrations will be removed in 9.1, so make sure to address any deprecation warnings as soon as you can, before upgrading to 9.1. If you upgrade from KeyboardKit 7, first go through 8.
KeyboardKit 9
KeyboardKit 9 upgrades the deployment targets to iOS 15, macOS 12, tvOS 15, watchOS 8, and visionOS 1, removes all deprecated code, and simplifies many concepts.
This version has migration deprecations to help you transition from KeyboardKit 8. Just follow the instructions to migrate your code if needed. They will be removed in 9.1.
You may still run into a few breaking changes, where migrations were not possible to add due to architectural changes. For such breaking changes, see the changes & comments below.
🧪 Experiments
The next keyboard button experiments have been made permanent, which should fix random bugs.
⌨️ Essentials
The KeyboardContext has a new isKeyboardCollapsed property that can collapse the keyboard, a new keyboardCase to decouple the keyboard type from its case, and a new isKeyboardFloating property.
The KeyboardType.alphabetic keyboard type is decoupled from the case, which makes the type a lot easier to use. Now set the keyboardCase to toggle case, instead of using the keyboard type.
The KeyboardController protocol now has services and state properties, so that it can be used in even more places. This drastically removes the SDKs dependencies of UIKit in certain places.
The KeyboardView now supports being used as a floating keyboard on iPad, which will render it as a phone keyboard. It also has a collapsedView that’s displayed when isKeyboardCollapsed is true.
The new Keyboard.CollapsedView is a view that can be displayed when isKeyboardCollapsed is true.
💡 Autocomplete
The AutocompleteService now returns a Autocomplete.ServiceResult instead of a list of suggestions. The Autocomplete.Suggestion now implements Codable & Equatable, which makes it more versatile.
The Autocomplete.Toolbar now uses view builders to let you customize its content. The default views have been polished to look more native.
The KeyboardInputController now disables autocorrect instead of autocomplete if a keyboard type doesn’t prefer autocomplete. The reason for this is that custom keyboards must always have a top padding, so hiding autocomplete makes little sense.
Finally, the KeyboardKit Pro LocalService now lets you specify a next word prediction request, to let you integrate with 3rd party AI tools. First out is Claude.
🗯️ Callouts
The Callouts namespace has been renamed to KeyboardCallout and simplified to only use a single style and a single context.
The KeyboardStyleService has been adjusted to return an optional callout style, to only override the environment style if it’s defined. The KeyboardTheme is adjusted to only provide a single style as well.
The .calloutStyle view modifier can therefore be applied to KeyboardView, which will either use the service style or the environment one. This makes styling callouts even easier than before.
🎤 Dictation
The Dictation namespace is simplified to only use a single service that can handle all dictation. The new DictationService doesn’t need a configuration. It uses keyboard state to set up its behavior.
😀 Emojis
Emoji localization has been drastically improved for English, and now supports Swedish localization.
The .emojiKeyboardStyle modifier takes a style builder instead of a style, to allow root level styling. This lets you apply a the memory optimized style from the root view, should you need it.
The standard emoji styles no longer take an input toolbar display mode. You can instead use a new .augmented(for:) style function if you need to adjust the style.
The EmojiKeyboard has been rebuilt from scratch, and now behaves more like the native keyboard, by scrolling through all categories. It also (finally) supports Emoji search.
⌨️ External Keyboard
The ExternalKeyboardContext has moved to the open-source library and added to Keyboard.State.
🔉 Feedback
The haptic feedback is adjusted to be lighter when typing, to make the typing not feel as heavy.
🇸🇪 Localization
This version adds support for 🇦🇺 English (Australia) and 🇨🇦 English (Canada), bringing the number of supported locales up to 70.
The KeyboardLocale has been replaced with using the native Locale everywhere. This removes a lot of fiddling when handling locales in your keyboard.
🔣 Layout
An InputSet can now be created with device variations, which allows for resolving device-specific items at runtime. While the old type was destructive, the new type keeps all original state.
The KeyboardLayout type is now a struct instead of a class, to better represent the value type it’s meant to be. This change may require you to change from let to var when you modify a layout.
🎛️ Settings
Persistent settings have moved from the various contexts to nested settings types, to separate the context properties from settings.
📝 Text Input
The KeyboardContext is now responsible for the textInputProxy. The controller refers to this proxy, but the context owns it.
The KeyboardKit Pro input text components can therefore be setup with a KeyboardContext, and no longer need a controller instance.
👑 Pro
KeyboardKit Pro can now be activated with a license file, which means that you will no longer have to upgrade KeyboardKit version to upgrade your license.
License files will be provided to all yearly Gold & Enterprise customers that prefer to use a license file instead of a binary encoded license key.
🚨 Breaking Changes
There are breaking changes in this version, but most are handled by migration deprecations that will be removed in 9.1. Make sure to address any migration deprecation warnings you receive.
Some things that are not covered by migration deprecations are:
- All previously deprecated code has been removed.
- All previously mutable styles and configs are now computed.
- The dictation changes can’t be migrated since a new service replaces the old ones.
- The
Autocomplete.Suggestionadditional info are now limited to string-based data. - The
Autocomplete.LocalServicenow requires a keyboard context for contextual info. - The
KeyboardLayoutis now a struct, and must now be avarfor you to customize it. - The
KeyboardStyleServiceand callout style view modifiers now only use the base style. - The
StandardSpeechRecognizerhas been refactored, and must be updated for you to use it.
A problem that you may run into, is that the KeyboardInputViewController setupKeyboardView(_ view: @autoclosure @escaping () -> Content) is renamed to setupKeyboardView(with:) to remove the DocC ambiguity with the controller-based function. If you use this variant, just add an with: parameter.
Conclusion
KeyboardKit 9 is a huge step forward, and makes using KeyboardKit easier than ever before. Many since long requested features are finally in place, and more will come in subsequent minor updates.
To give the KeyboardKit 9 Release Candidate a try, use the 9.0.0-rc.1 tag. For more information, see the release or the KeyboardKit Pro release. Don’t hesistate to reach out if you find bugs or have any feedback.
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