Preview: Pop-up ALPHA keyboard for Android and iOS

[Thomas Okken]

The next release of Free42 and Plus42, for Android and iOS, will offer a pop-up ALPHA keyboard option. When enabled, a QWERTY keyboard will pop up whenever the ALPHA menu is activated. The keyboard look and feel are based on the standard iOS pop-up keyboard, but the key legends and functions are tailored to the needs of Free42 and Plus42.

Here is a screen shot:

[Thomas Okken]

And another:

I don't know yet when the official release will be, since I'm still working on some other UI improvements I'd like to include at the same time. But in the meantime, anyone interested in taking this for a test drive, drop me a line, and I'll set it up.

[Marco Polo]

Hi.

I am using Plus42 on a venerabile Honor 7xV and Android 9.

The keyboard pops up properly, but the only keys working properly are Enter, Esc and Bksp.

The alphanumeric keys just return the click and haptic, but nothigbis written

[Thomas Okken]

I am aware of the problem. It appears to affect only certain devices. I have uploaded new releases with fixes for this issue, Free42 3.2a and Plus42 1.2a, for Android only. (The iOS version is not affected.)

Plus42 1.2a is live in the Play Store as I write this, but Free42 3.2a is still waiting to be reviewed.

[Marco Polo]

Bug solved.

This feature makes Plus42 a real killer calc....

[Thomas Okken]

I found another couple of bugs in the keyboard code. I uploaded a pair of new builds that fix all the known keyboard bugs: Free42 3.2b and Plus42 1.2b, both for Android and iOS. Both are live in the Google Play Store as I write this, but still waiting for approval for the iOS App Store. I expect the iOS updates to show up Monday at the latest.

[Marco Polo]

Thank you.

I have one more question: there is a way to access the entire alpha set from pop-up keyboard?

[Thomas Okken]

The entire HP-42S character set, and the additional characters defined by Free42 and Plus42, are accessible from the pop-up keyboard. The ones that you can't see immediately in the uppercase, lowercase, 123, and #+= layouts are accessible by long-pressing certain keys. For example, when you press and hold the A key, you will see the options A Ä Å Æ ᴀ.

The layout mostly follows the iOS US English QWERTY layout, with of course a few modifications for characters that are in the calculator's character set but not available on the iOS keyboard.