Deutsch Tastatur für USB und Bluetooth (QWERTZ)

[kallt_kaffe]

Guten tag! Ich bin aus Schweden und mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut so I will write the rest in english. I hope that is OK? I could use Google translate but sometimes it translates things in a strange way.

Most of you won't know me but I'm been doing custom ROMs for HTC Kaiser, Huawei U8100, ZTE Blade and also responsible for the officiall ZTE V9/Light CyanogenMod port. I'm also doing an inofficial port of CyanogenMod9 for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9. (You'll find me in the XDA-developers forum, Modaco forums and the Swedish Swedroid forums)

However I recently bought a bluetooth keyboard for my Samsung Galaxy Tab only to find out Google (and Samsung in this case) thinks everyone lives in the US and the keymapping was a disaster making my bluetooth keyboard almost useless.

So being a fix-it-yourself person I tweaked my keylayout until it worked perfectly and then I wrote an app making it easy for others to apply the same (Swedish/Finnish) keylayout. Not stopping there I also created keymaps for the my Nordic neighbours (Norway and Denmark) and yesterday I made a keylayout that should work perfectly on German and Austrian keyboards.

The app only works on "rooted" devices and it is compatible with Android 3.x (Honeycomb) and Android 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich).

I've published a free "demo" version that works exactly like the "full" version apart from the space button that has been mapped to "S". The demo version can be used to try that it works before deciding if you want to buy the full version or not.

I'm aware that there also exist non-standard bluetooth keyboards like those aimed for the iPad market and if it turns out that your keyboard doesn't work very well with my layout then do not hesitate to contact me on keylayouts@apedroid.com (attach a photo of the keyboard if possible) and hopefully I can make alternative layouts for more German keyboards.

Demo version: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.apedroid.keymapgerausdemo

Full version: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.apedroid.keymapgeraus

 

[mizch]

Looks like a very useful tool for those of us having laying around a bluetooth keyboard (like me) or needing one. I'l try it out later when I have more time.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

Hi again. I found out that the first version wouldn't work on Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0.2. That problem has now been fixed in the latest version of the app.

 

[mizch]

Market.ggogle.com tells me "This app is incompatible with all your devices". I own the devices listed in the column at left. Any ideas?

 

[kallt_kaffe]

It only works with Android 3.0 and later.

 

[mizch]

That's a pity. Most Android devices are running an Android version smaller than 3.0.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

I'm well aware of that but on my Android 2.3.7 tablet it is not even possible to pair my bluetooth keyboard. Can you pair the bluetooth keyboard with your S2 and P1000?

 

[mizch]

With the P1000, yes. I never tried it with the S2. With the P1000, 'z' on the german BT keboard layout displays as a 'y', punctuation chars are garbled and so on, i.e. it assumes an american keyboard layout.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

With the P1000, yes. I never tried it with the S2. With the P1000, 'z' on the german BT keboard layout displays as a 'y', punctuation chars are garbled and so on, i.e. it assumes an american keyboard layout.

I've written a new app that does not require root and also works on Android 2.3: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apedroid.hwkeyboardhelper

I've made keymaps for a lot of different countries and I will add more in future version. I also plan to add the possibility to manually remap keys as many bluetooth keyboard do not follow the USB keyboard layout completely. For example my swedish Targus bluetooth keyboard puts the characters normally on scancode 86 on scancode 41.

 

[mizch]

Hooray! I'll try this weekend and report back. Thanks a lot.

 

[mizch]

OK. I couldn't wait. I tried it out, almost instantly.

- It works (Keysonic ACK-340BT, German) and it is well worth the bucks.

- I have to switch the input method to "External Keyboard Helper" or else the keyboard won't handle national characters correctly. Doing so displays a message that the Bluetooth Keyboard won't work as expected if I don't use the Samsung Keyboard (I'm on the Galaxy Tab P1000). Somewhat confusing, nothing serious. It would be nicer not to have to switch keyboards from BT to screen and vice versa.

- In K9, if I'm at the end of the current input field and pressing the "right" cursor key, it switches to a different input field (in my case, "favourites"). Simply using "right" repeatedly until at the end of text and then pressing "return" for a new line will thus yield to unexpected results since the "return" key activates the field the focus has changed to instead. In my opinion, repeat on "right" should move to the end of the current field and stop there. Not doing so may be annoying sometimes -- but I can't tell if it is just a problem of K9.

So, kallt_kaffee, nice work. Thank you. I can recommend spending the few bucks to anyone owning a BT keyboard.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

- I have to switch the input method to "External Keyboard Helper" or else the keyboard won't handle national characters correctly.

The only way (asfaik) to change the keyboard mapping without rooting is with an input method.

Doing so displays a message that the Bluetooth Keyboard won't work as expected if I don't use the Samsung Keyboard (I'm on the Galaxy Tab P1000). Somewhat confusing, nothing serious. It would be nicer not to have to switch keyboards from BT to screen and vice versa.

The message is Samsung specific. I have that too on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 if I use stock firmware. It appears everytime I attach an external keyboard if the Samsung input method is not the default. Also it automaticly switches to the Samsung Input method and there seems to be now way to turn it off.

The reason they do this is that they try to do keymapping in their input method but at least on my swedish Galaxy Tab 8.9 they do a bad job. While they do fix the swedish åäö, other mappings are wrong and the ctrl and alt buttons stops working.

When I run stock firmware on my Galaxy Tab 8.9 I increase the detection delay in External Keyboard Helper Pro. That way I can dismiss the Samsung Dialog box before the Input Method selector shows up.

When running CyangonMod 9 (which is what I usually run as I am the maintainer of the Galaxy Tab 8.9 ports) this is not a problem. Also my Motorola Xoom with stock Android 3.2 does not have this problem.

- In K9, if I'm at the end of the current input field and pressing the "right" cursor key, it switches to a different input field (in my case, "favourites"). Simply using "right" repeatedly until at the end of text and then pressing "return" for a new line will thus yield to unexpected results since the "return" key activates the field the focus has changed to instead. In my opinion, repeat on "right" should move to the end of the current field and stop there. Not doing so may be annoying sometimes -- but I can't tell if it is just a problem of K9.

That must be the stock behaviour. I'm not remapping the arrow keys in any way.

So, kallt_kaffee, nice work. Thank you. I can recommend spending the few bucks to anyone owning a BT keyboard.

Thanks for the feedback. It will get even better when I finish the custom keymapping part. Especially for those (like myself) with bluetooth keyboards that do not follow the USB keyboard standard.

 

[mizch]

The only way (asfaik) to change the keyboard mapping without rooting is with an input method.

Agreed. We often like to forget that the majority of users (and these are the ones your program is meant for) don't have rooted phones (because we do).

Best of both worlds would be if your program installs optionally the new keymap into /system/usr/keylayout/ if it detects that it is allowed to do so because the phone is rooted. That would be a suggestion from my wish list.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

Best of both worlds would be if your program installs optionally the new keymap into /system/usr/keylayout/ if it detects that it is allowed to do so because the phone is rooted. That would be a suggestion from my wish list.

You would still have problems with the Samsung input method and you would have to switch to a different one because it interfers with external keyboards.

They have good intentions with it but I wish it would be possible to turn it off.

 

[kallt_kaffe]

Some new info.

In the latest version you can tweak the layouts yourself in case your specific keyboard doesn't match the standard USB layout. (My own Targus Bluetooth keyboard needs this kind of tweaking).

I also published a demo version where everything works except for the space button that you can try before buying the Pro version.

Demo version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apedroid.hwkeyboardhelperdemo

Pro version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apedroid.hwkeyboardhelper