Caps Lock notification for Bluetooth keyboards

[Adina Hirschmann]

I am using Hacker's Keyboard with a Logitech k810 external Bluetooth device.  All keys work well, however, with the LED on the keyboard not working with Android, I need a workaround to be able to remember the "Caps Lock" is engaged.  Would it be possible to add an indicator (notification icon) to the status bar? Getting the LED on the keyboard to light up would be fabulous, too, but the status bar or phone LED would also work.  I already tried the Logitech website, but their Setpoint download was only for Windows.  I would appreciate whatever you can do.

[Beverly Howard]

​"Caps Lock Indicator"​

I'm not going to be able to comment on the specific request for a status bar indicator other than to say that Hackers and other keyboards have no real connection with external keyboards, but I will offer a couple of observations and alternative solutions.

The fact that Hackers (and other) keyboards have no information about the caps lock status of a bluetooth or external keyboard can be seen by turning on the "virtual keyboard" when the external keyboards are attached and toggling the caps lock on the external keyboard.

Android onscreen keyboards indicate the caps lock status by changing the "case" of the onscreen keycaps... i.e. toggle the caps lock and the osc keycaps will remain in uppercase and, again, this does not happen when an external keyboard capslock is toggled.

If a visible capslock status is important, you might consider using a USB rather than bluetooth keyboard.  The capslock and numlock leds on USB keyboards work when they are attached to android devices.  This is another indication that Logitech needs to be the source for a capslock indicator, either on keyboard or onscreen.

There is a "kludge" that might help... if you set your android device to display a virtual osk when an external keyboard is in use, the _virtual keyboard's_ caps lock key will both toggle caps lock on the external keyboard _and_ give you a visual indication that caps lock is on by the case of the keycap characters... unfortunately, the reverse is not true.

There are some nice small format usb keyboards, plus you can use any full sized usb keyboard as well.  (look for an "OTG" adapter on amazon and elsewhere such as https://www.amazon.com/Insten-Micro-Adapter-Samsung-Galaxy/dp/B005QX7KYU )

Hope this info is useful,

Beverly Howard

[Beverly Howard]

​One other option that might offer an uppercasing solution...

Not many people know that if you highlight a block of text, tapping the <shift> key will toggle the highlighted text from lowercase, to uppercase to capitalized.  This might make it easy to type without using the caps lock key​ and then highlighting and toggling the text you need to uppercase.

Again, the above works only with the virtual osk keyboards.

Beverly Howard

[Adina Hirschmann]