react-native-external-keyboard v0.5.2

React Native External Keyboard

React Native library for enhanced external keyboard support.

• ⚡️ The New Architecture is supported
• ⚡️ Bridgeless

Breaking Changes !!!

The Keyboard Module (A11yModule, KeyboardExtendedModule) has been removed. This API was deprecated and did not work properly with the new architecture. You can refer to the migration guide to update it.

New Release Features

• Introduced an iOS-specific component: KeyboardFocusGroup, a component for managing the tintColor, focusGroupIdentifier, and group focus.
• Enhanced KeyboardExtendedBaseView with haloCornerRadius, haloExpandX, and haloExpandY properties for customizing the appearance of the Halo Effect.
• Enhanced KeyboardExtendedBaseView with onBubbledContextMenuPress, key press functionality has been also enhanced. Key presses can be listened to for a group of components, screens, or pages.
• Added the ignoreGroupFocusHint prop to KeyboardExtendedBaseView to support key press listening without focusing the container.

Features

• Keyboard focus management and autofocus capabilities.
• Key press event handling.
• Focus management for TextInput and Pressable components.
• Customization of the Halo Effect and tintColor for iOS.

Installation

npm install react-native-external-keyboard

iOS:

cd ios && pod install && cd ..

Usage

withKeyboardFocus - For Pressable, Touchable, and more

The withKeyboardFocus HOC is a helper for integrating keyboard focus functionality. It significantly simplifies integration by wrapping the provided component in KeyboardFocusView and extending it with additional features, such as focus and blur events.

const KeybardedPressable = withKeyboardFocus(Pressable);
const KeybardedTouchable = withKeyboardFocus(TouchableOpacity);
const KeybardedButton = withKeyboardFocus(Button);

...

<TouchableOpacity
  ref={ref}
  onPress={...}
  onLongPress={...}
  onFocus={...}
  onBlur={...}
  style={styles.pressable}
  containerStyle={styles.pressableContainer}
  autoFocus
>
  <Text>TouchableOpacity</Text>
</TouchableOpacity>

After wrapping a Pressable or Touchable with withKeyboardFocus, you will be able to handle focus and blur events, control the tint color, apply focus and container focus styles, focus the component using a ref, or configure autoFocus.

!NOTE You may discover that long press on spacebar does not trigger a long press event on iOS. This is because iOS use a Full Keyboard Access system that provides commands for interacting with the system. Rather than holding down the spacebar, you can use Tab+M (the default action for opening the context menu). You can change Commands in: Full Keyboard Access -> Commands

KeyboardExtendedView

KeyboardExtendedView is similar to withKeyboardFocus; it is also based on KeyboardExtendedBaseView and provides keyboard focus functionality. It can be useful for handling key presses or managing the focus of a group of components.

<KeyboardExtendedView>
  <Text>Parent component</Text>
  <KeyboardExtendedView>
    <Text>Child component 1</Text>
  </KeyboardExtendedView>
  <KeyboardExtendedView>
    <Text>Child component 2</Text>
  </KeyboardExtendedView>
</KeyboardExtendedView>

KeyboardExtendedInput

The TextInput component with keyboard focus support. This component allows the TextInput to be focused using the keyboard in various scenarios.

import { KeyboardExtendedInput } from 'react-native-external-keyboard';
...
  <KeyboardExtendedInput
    focusType="default"
    blurType="default"
    value={textInput}
    onChangeText={setTextInput}
  />

KeyboardExtendedBaseView: (alias for: ExternalKeyboardView)

import { KeyboardExtendedBaseView } from 'react-native-external-keyboard';
...
  <KeyboardExtendedBaseView
    onKeyDownPress={...}
    onKeyUpPress={...}
    focussable
  >
    <Text>Content</Text>
  </KeyboardExtendedBaseView>

KeyboardFocusGroup

The KeyboardFocusGroup is a View-based component developed based on the iOS API. It can be used for defining focus groups or setting the tintColor globally.

  <KeyboardFocusGroup  
    tintColor="orange">
    <ScrollView
      contentContainerStyle={styles.contentContainer}
      style={styles.container}
    >
    ...
    </ScrollView>
  </KeyboardFocusGroup>
  <KeyboardFocusGroup 
    focusStyle={{ backgroundColor: 'green' }}
    onFocusChange={(e) => console.log('green', e)}
    groupIdentifier="green"
    tintColor="green"
  >
      <Button>
  </KeyboardFocusGroup>
  <KeyboardFocusGroup
    focusStyle={{ backgroundColor: 'yellow' }}
    onFocusChange={(e) => console.log('yellow', e)}
    groupIdentifier="yellow"
    tintColor="yellow"
  >
      <Button>
  </KeyboardFocusGroup>

Migration 0.3.x to 0.4.0

Module (A11yModule, KeyboardExtendedModule)

Functions in the A11yModule (KeyboardExtendedModule) have been deprecated. They appeared appropriate at the time, but with the new architecture and to improve usability, they have been replaced with ref actions.

Previous:

import { KeyboardExtendedModule } from 'react-native-external-keyboard';

KeyboardExtendedModule.setKeyboardFocus(ref); //or A11yModule.setKeyboardFocus(ref);

Updated:

import { KeyboardExtendedPressable, type KeyboardFocus } from 'react-native-external-keyboard';
...

const ref = useRef<KeyboardFocus>(null);

...

const onPressForFocus = () => {
  ref.current.focus()
}

<TouchableOpacity
  ref={ref}
>
  <Text>TouchableOpacity</Text>
</TouchableOpacity>

The specific method for iOS, setPreferredKeyboardFocus, has not been added so far because we now have the new feature autoFocus, which does not fit well with the new API and its approach. It is better to use autoFocus for focusing views on both Android and iOS.

If you truly need this method, please create a new issue, and we will consider how to return it.

Pressable

Unfortunately, the previous version of Pressable had many issues. For iOS, we cloned the entire Pressable component from React Native's source code, while for Android, we simply wrapped the component.

This led to two main problems:

1. Difficulty in updating Pressable for iOS.
2. Challenges in controlling styles.

For these reasons, we replaced Pressable with withKeyboardFocus(Pressable), as it was the only viable path forward to introduce new features.

Component aliases

It is believed that good naming can simplify usage and development. Based on this principle and for compatibility with 0.2.x, aliases were added. You can still use the old naming convention, and it will be maintained in future releases.

The map of aliases is provided below: A11yModule -> KeyboardExtendedModule Pressable -> KeyboardExtendedPressable KeyboardFocusView -> KeyboardExtendedView ExternalKeyboardView -> KeyboardExtendedBaseView

API

ToDo

export type OnKeyPress = NativeSyntheticEvent<{
  keyCode: number;
  unicode: number;
  unicodeChar: string;
  isLongPress: boolean;
  isAltPressed: boolean;
  isShiftPressed: boolean;
  isCtrlPressed: boolean;
  isCapsLockOn: boolean;
  hasNoModifiers: boolean;
}>;

Roadmap

• Update onPress and onLongPress for withKeyboardFocus
• Add functionality to control keyboard focus order.
• Verify and update focusable and disabled states for iOS and Android.
• Update Readme.md.
• Create the documentation.
• Perfomance optimization

Contributing

Any type of contribution is highly appreciated. Feel free to create PRs, raise issues, or share ideas.

Acknowledgements

It has been a long journey since the first release of the react-native-external-keyboard package. Many features have been added, and a lot of issues have been fixed.

With that, I would like to thank the contributors, those who created issues, and the followers, because achieving these results wouldn't have been possible without you.

Thanks to the initial authors: Andrii Koval, Michail Chavkin, Dzmitry Khamitsevich. Thanks to the contributors: Stéphane. Thanks to those who created issues: Stéphane, proohit, Rananjaya Bandara, SteveHoneckPGE, Wes

I really appreciate your help; it has truly helped me move forward!

License

MIT

Made with create-react-native-library