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I have to admit, that having phone with keyboard is as crazy as it can be, it starts feeling that phone becomes computer. Anyway if you happen to desire to write longer texts on phone, physical keyboard is unbeatable by software keyboard on touchscreen. I don't really know about any useful tutorial on making keyboard work properly with phone so why not to write one...
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Pairing BT keyboard with the phone is piece of cake. It will connect as any other device. No issue here. Usually BT keyboards have 3 BT channels, connecting with the phone on my keyboard is on channel 3. However Keyboard is not a device that phone is well equipped for. This needs some explaining...
It is quite helpful to understand how keyboard actually works. It's not as obvious. when you press a key with letter, the keyboard doesn't send the letter to the computer. It sends codename of the key and the computer compares the key with a table that tells it that it should react with writing a letter. This table, that holds info about meaning of each key and combination of keys is called keyboard layout, layout is also what you see printed on the keys, but one is in computer and one is on keyboard. and the fact is - they are in no way connected. So you can have for example a keyboard with AZERTY layout, but computer set to write in QWERTY will be writing Q if you press A key on keyboard.
Layout is a keyword in this tutorial. In phone with android you have keyboard on screen, a virtual keyboard run by app Gboard. Gboard handles the virtual keyboard and since it is keyboard software, it handles physical keyboard too. Virtual keyboard has a layout too, one that is specific to it. When you connect BT keyboard to phone and start writing, you'll find out that something is amiss. The issue is, that the Gboard, when you connect the keyboard, will give it layout it has available, but it will be layout for virtual keyboard on your screen. Phone doesn't have layouts for physical keyboards, it doesn't need them. So some keys don't work, nor some combos. Phone is detecting them, but when looking into layout it has, there is no data, nothing to do, so it does nothing.
So, unfortunately you're going to need an app to solve the missing layout problem. My choice is "More Physical Keyboard Layouts", which includes many layouts for many languages and includes nothing else. (doesn't even appear in the list of apps in phone, which I disapprove) It's tiny and only adds layouts. There is also some paid app where you can set your own unique layout, but for most people that is not really needed.
Once installed, you can get into settings of physical keyboard and set a layout that is designed for physical keyboard. Once you do that, your keyboard will start working as you are probably used to experience with computer, more or less. Some shortcuts won't work, but function keys do and for some reason alt+tab works.
That's it, a long text for short work, but it's good to know why we do what we do.
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Pairing BT keyboard with the phone is piece of cake. It will connect as any other device. No issue here. Usually BT keyboards have 3 BT channels, connecting with the phone on my keyboard is on channel 3. However Keyboard is not a device that phone is well equipped for. This needs some explaining...
It is quite helpful to understand how keyboard actually works. It's not as obvious. when you press a key with letter, the keyboard doesn't send the letter to the computer. It sends codename of the key and the computer compares the key with a table that tells it that it should react with writing a letter. This table, that holds info about meaning of each key and combination of keys is called keyboard layout, layout is also what you see printed on the keys, but one is in computer and one is on keyboard. and the fact is - they are in no way connected. So you can have for example a keyboard with AZERTY layout, but computer set to write in QWERTY will be writing Q if you press A key on keyboard.
Layout is a keyword in this tutorial. In phone with android you have keyboard on screen, a virtual keyboard run by app Gboard. Gboard handles the virtual keyboard and since it is keyboard software, it handles physical keyboard too. Virtual keyboard has a layout too, one that is specific to it. When you connect BT keyboard to phone and start writing, you'll find out that something is amiss. The issue is, that the Gboard, when you connect the keyboard, will give it layout it has available, but it will be layout for virtual keyboard on your screen. Phone doesn't have layouts for physical keyboards, it doesn't need them. So some keys don't work, nor some combos. Phone is detecting them, but when looking into layout it has, there is no data, nothing to do, so it does nothing.
So, unfortunately you're going to need an app to solve the missing layout problem. My choice is "More Physical Keyboard Layouts", which includes many layouts for many languages and includes nothing else. (doesn't even appear in the list of apps in phone, which I disapprove) It's tiny and only adds layouts. There is also some paid app where you can set your own unique layout, but for most people that is not really needed.
Once installed, you can get into settings of physical keyboard and set a layout that is designed for physical keyboard. Once you do that, your keyboard will start working as you are probably used to experience with computer, more or less. Some shortcuts won't work, but function keys do and for some reason alt+tab works.
That's it, a long text for short work, but it's good to know why we do what we do.
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This is a bug in Gboard app. It is a virtual keyboard app so when it has physical keyboard it takes it a controller to control virtual keyboard. And for whatever reason when loading layout automatically (first connecting, or after an update of the system), it will load QWERTY layout despite calling it QWERTZ. Since the issue is in virtual keyboard, the solution is in "fixing" virtual keyboard settings, not physical keyboard settings.
So what to do? Open settings of software keyboard and add second layout. Any layout. I add QWERTY for the same language. Then in text program where keyboard jumps up, I switch the layouts. That orders phone to discard layout it has and load the other one. Then I switch to QWERTZ again and phone loads it, correct way this time. Then I can just remove secondary layout as I don't have any other use for it.
So what to do? Open settings of software keyboard and add second layout. Any layout. I add QWERTY for the same language. Then in text program where keyboard jumps up, I switch the layouts. That orders phone to discard layout it has and load the other one. Then I switch to QWERTZ again and phone loads it, correct way this time. Then I can just remove secondary layout as I don't have any other use for it.
Since it doesn't matter to the computer what is written on the keys, it gives us huge advantage when we somehow happen to get a keyboard with layout on the keys we do not use. My BT keyboard was manufactured in AZERTY. So how do I convert it to QWERTZ? Keyboard stickers. As stupid as it sounds, there is no big deal here, just get stickers of language layout you use and put them on the keys. And put them on the right keys too, okay? As said above, the computer doesn't give a sh*t about what is written on the keys. That's for you, so stickers will work completely fine.
Post automatically merged:
Found a video where I filmed how it really doesn't matter, what is written on the keys.
So I'm sharing, just to give you some visual on how keyboard layout works... Phone is set on QWERTZ... bah, it's visible quite fine on the video.
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