I'm developing an app with multiple input[type=numer]
elements. Android only for now.
The built-in numeric keyboard has two problems:
* it's inconsistent (different on different versions of Android)
* it has unnecessary keys (space, dash, comma and "next") which add confusion.
I'd like to have a keyboard with just numbers, comma and backspace
. Is that possible?
Edit Oct 3, 2013. A third problem appeared and it's by far the worst. It looks like Samsung decided to skip the decimal character (".") from their numeric keyboard, at least the one that pops when input[type=numer]
gets the focus in the browser. It seems all Galaxy S4 devices are affected (I've seen it on the S4 Mini, I don't have access to many Samsung devices... all I see are Nexus lovers :-)). I couldn't find much about the issue in Google, but I've seen Galaxy S4 users complain about it in 2012 (I've tried it on one S3 a few weeks ago and it was OK).
Long story short, after a careful consideration I decided to implement my own keyboard in html/javascript (Samsung is too important, I'm getting bad reviews just because of it and I don't think I can do anything to fix it). I'm in the process of rewriting my app, I'll try to remember and tell the story when I'm done.
Edit Dec 3, 2013. My current solution (still in alpha stage, the app rewrite takes me way longer than I expected) is a keyboard implemented entirely in javascript. I used regular <span> elements instead of <input> to prevent OS keyboard from popping out. As an added benefit, I get to control everything about the keyboard, so I added a few arithmetical keys (x, -, *, /, ( and )) and the user can type in expressions, for example "3x(2+5.5)" instead of "15". I'll link to the app when it's ready (still at least a few more weeks).