Nostr Web Client

can already tell android dev is going to be a pain in the ass. On my pixel phone when i tap ‘a’ it sends two ‘a’s. on my galaxy tablet it sends one. Exact same code.

I’m logging at the lowest levels, directly from the native GameActivity apis.

All i’m doing is registering a callback for when there is text input. GameActivity calls me twice when i press a key, first with an ‘a’ and then again with ‘aa’. ahhh. not even ai is helping with this one.

I guess next step is to look at the android source code to see why this is happening. At least it’s cool you can do that. but still 😩 nostr:note1rh933wgf99qf3v7r4sl9p93jh9xl45kygqzy6thau93wyy0m2mss23er04

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Discussion

guy 10mo ago

It's pretty insane that getting a keyboard to work is this big of a challenge!! Are you in such uncharted territory using rust on android or something? Have some satcompassion 😄

jb55 10mo ago

yeah its just me and lucasmerlin from egui who has tackled this problem. I have successfully*ish* hooked up text input from GameActivity (android-activity) to winit to egui.

Once i fix these remaining issues i can start to try to upstream this stuff. Once i do egui will start to be a more serious option for mobile cross platform dev.

This is pretty huge because there are not many immediate mode non-web rust app dev frameworks that are truly cross platform.

Having it in winit will mean any app framework that uses winit to manage its windowing will have input from android and ios as well. This is surprisingly still not supported.

Vitor Pamplona 10mo ago

Keep in mind every keyboard on Android works differently. They all have their own kinks.

jb55 10mo ago

lovely

FreedomTech 10mo ago

Yes ... OpenBoard in Amethyst deletes spaces before words when you type back .. back .. back ..

Rand 10mo ago

yes *U* R*/*

Vitor Pamplona 10mo ago

I think that is why most game ports from desktop avoid the default on screen keyboard all together. It's easier to just not deal with it.

jb55 10mo ago

We were using NativeActivity but was told it was deprecated and they keyboard wasn’t appearing at all 😵‍💫

Vitor Pamplona 10mo ago

Yeah, since the migration to Compose, most of Android is not developed based on Activities anymore. Activities are still required, but only because of backward compatibility. If it were for the Compose/Kotlin team, which is now the default way of doing Android, Activities would have been long gone (like... 6 years ago).

jb55 10mo ago

ah interesting, good to know

jb55 10mo ago

So GameActivity seems like a safe haven for now at least, assuming most game engines target that

Vitor Pamplona 10mo ago

Yeah, GameActivity is somewhat integrated into the Compose ecosystem because it is technically part of the Jetpack libs (the Kotlin guys)

Rand 10mo ago

prev. note waz ref. 2 pow NA o_0 a tu linda*/*

Rand 10mo ago

<*BrO*>

Jeroen Ubbink 10mo ago

The joys of hardware and os level customization fragmentation.

I have friends who do gamedev and in 2025 it's still something with "gotta do this if amd" or "gotta do that if nvidia" and then there's also different driver versions and some 100 cards that are 'common' and should maybe be taken into account.

jb55 10mo ago

oh yeah thank god for wgpu. I don’t want to deal with that

FreedomTech 10mo ago

You caan figure it out. We haave faaith in you!

jb55 10mo ago

Working on it with rust android devs now 🫡

https://github.com/rust-mobile/android-activity/pull/185#issuecomment-2717865794

Matt 10mo ago

We should have kept physical keyboards on phones I guess 😂 I think it would be helpful if we had keyboard standards at least. Maybe it's fair to build to the standard AOSP apps and let the third party keyboard apps follow that standard or just be broken.

What I don't understand is why these issues only come up with Nostr clients for me. I've never had this issue since the beginning of Android.

Rand 10mo ago

new tek carz+ suk2

Rand 10mo ago

jb55 10mo ago

There’s always issues, some nostr devs work in the open so you get to see how the sausage is made, users are QA, etc. all these issues are usually in resolved in big companies before people ever see them.

Software isn’t magic. It’s lots of grinding and polish to get something that just works.

Matt 10mo ago

Yeah, I can appreciate that. I built android apps years ago and don't recall it being an issue. In fairness, we didn't really have many other keyboards to worry about. I'm sure there's a lot more shit in the soup these days.

Crazy Horse Malt Beverage 10mo ago

BRING THE PHYSICAL CHICLET KEYBOARDS BACK

deeznuts 10mo ago

Better you than me🤣

MAHDOOD 10mo ago

You’re the goat Will. Your progeny will be proud of what you did for nostr and freedom.

Sarah⚡️ 10mo ago

Courage ! This will be a game changer , incoming 6000 downloads/ week 🤞🤞🤞