A flexible keyboard layout is an important part of a software keyboard, where factors like the device, screen orientation, locale, etc. can all affect the layout.

In KeyboardKit, InputSets and KeyboardLayouts are important layout concepts. Input sets specify the input keys of the keyboard and keyboard layouts specify the full set of keys.

KeyboardKit will register a StandardKeyboardLayoutProvider when the keyboard is loaded. It has a QWERTY layout by default, but you can inject localized providers, modify it, or replace it.

KeyboardKit Pro unlocks and registers localized input sets and layout providers. Information about Pro features can be found at the end of this article.

Input Sets

An InputSet set specifies the input keys of a keyboard. KeyboardKit has input sets like .qwerty, .standardNumeric and .standardSymbolic. You can also create your own custom input sets.

Keyboard layouts

A KeyboardLayout specifies the full set of keys of a keyboard. It can vary greatly for different device types, screen orientations, locales, etc.

For instance, iOS keyboards often have 3 input rows, where the input keys are surrounded by actions on either side, as well as a bottom row with a space key and action buttons.

This is however not true for all locales. For instance, Armenian has 4 input rows, Greek removes many side-buttons, Arabic removes the shift key, etc.

These differences can be significant, so the layout engine has to be flexible.

Hot to custome the keyboard layout

In KeyboardKit, a KeyboardLayoutProvider can be used to create dynamic layouts based on many factors, such as the current device type, orientation, locale, etc.

You can customize the layout by adding localized providers to the StandardKeyboardLayoutProvider, or by replacing the controller keyboardLayoutProvider

How to create a custom callout action provider

You can create a custom KeyboardLayoutProvider by inheriting StandardKeyboardLayoutProvider and customize what want, or implement the KeyboardLayoutProvider protocol from scratch.

There are also other base classes, such as BaseKeyboardLayoutProvider, InputSetBasedKeyboardLayoutProvider, iPadKeyboardLayoutProvider and iPhoneKeyboardLayoutProvider.

👑 Pro features

KeyboardKit Pro unlocks a localized InputSet and KeyboardLayoutProvider for each locale in your license and injects them into the StandardKeyboardLayoutProvider.

You can access all locale-specific input sets that your license unlocks like this:

let swedish = try InputSet.swedish
let numeric = try InputSet.spanishNumeric
let symbolic = try InputSet.germanSymbolic

You can access all providers that your license unlocks like this:

let providers = License.current.localizedKeyboardLayoutProviders

and locale-specific providers like this:

let provider = try ProKeyboardLayoutProvider.Swedish()

You can inherit ProKeyboardLayoutProvider, or any of the available localized versions, to customize the base behavior.

Documentation

The information on this page is shortened to be easier to overview. For more information about this feature, code samples, etc., please see the online documentation.