Detect virtual keyboard vs. hardware keyboard

Question

I have been thinking about this a while now, and I can't figure a way to deal with it. Is there any way to detect if the user uses a virtual (software) keyboard or a traditional (hardware) keyboard?

The new Windows Surface has its own keyboard in the cover, and for Android / iPad there are a ton of different bluetooth keyboards.

So, do any of you have any input about this?
I'm aiming for Android, IOS & Windows Tablet/Phone.

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Motivation: (very subjective)

When developing web applications for tablet/smartphone I have come to the understanding that it's easier - in many situations - to use a JavaScript keyboard instead of the OS's software keyboard.

Lets say you want to enter a PIN code. Instead of having a keyboard filling half of the screen:

Software (OS) keyboard:

|----------------|
|    [ input]    |
|                |
|----------------|
|  1  2  3  4  5 |
|  6  7  8  9  0 |
|----------------|

JavaScript keyboard:

|----------------|
|    [ input]    |
|    | 1 2 3|    |
|    | 4 5 6|    |
|    |_7_8_9|    |
|                |
|                |
|----------------|

If you need to handle a lot of inputs, maybe you want to make an overlaying div with the inputs and use the software keyboard:

|----------------|
| P1 P2    P3 P4 |
| [inp 1][inp 2] |
|----------------|
|    KEYBOARD    |
|                |
|----------------|

But if the user has their own hardware keyboard, we want to make the edit inline in place.

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I have been looking around SO and found this post: iPad Web App: Detect Virtual Keyboard Using JavaScript in Safari? ... but this seams to only work in IOS - not sure about browser.

Answer 1

I think the best approach would be to combine HTML5 form attributes with an optional virtual keyboard link.

HTML5 form attributes can be used to trigger different types of keyboards. For example, <input type="email">, <input type="number"> and <input type="tel"> will trigger the appropriate keyboard types on iOS (not sure about Android/WinPho/other, but I would imagine it does the same), allowing the user to input the data more easily.

If you want, you could additionally offer a button to trigger a custom numpad under the text field for older non-HTML5 compliant mobile browsers. Those will display the new HTML5 fields as standard text fields.

You can use browser sniffing to detect mobile browsers, but don't forget that those can still support things such as bluetooth keyboards. Sniffing additionally has the problem that it will almost certainly miss some browsers, and incorrectly detect others, thus you shouldn't rely on it solely.