How to disable the AOSP keyboard?

chris657

I'm using the FUTO keyboard and disable the AOSP keyboard in Settings->System->Keyboard->Onscreen-keyboard, but each time I change User the AOSP keyboard gets re-enabled.

I guess this might have been a temporary fix to the issue of not being able to unlock the phone (if using a password and having an inoperable 3rd party keyboard).

If that's the case, it'd be nice to be able to properly disable the AOSP keyboard, at least for non-Owner users, because there are other workarounds now.

Tandara

You are right, It was done in purpose. Users kept getting locked-out of their systems because their keyboard of choice wouldn't show up on lock screen. AOSP keyboard is there in case other types of input suddenly disappear. GOS waits for the upstream fix to remove it.

zashikiwarashi

If this is intentional I hope it's fixed soon. This is pretty infuriating to run into as a new user when I don't even use password input on the lock screen.

koocmit

zashikiwarashi is the AOSP keyboard harming your usage of the device somehow? Is there a direct need to have it disabled and preventing it from being a fallback? Unless it is somehow intruding upon your usage, I fail to see why disabling it permanently is something needed.

On the other hand, I can see the reason to turn it on by default as very much needed for people unfamiliar with how some Android keyboard may not work before first unlock after a restart and they feel locked out of their device.

DaveGOS

koocmit I use GBoard for multiple languages that I swap between frequently. GBoard seems to have the best support for the specific languages I use. Having to go into the settings to disable the AOSP keyboard every time I swap back from the Owner profile where I did something mundane like turning on or off is my biggest annoyance with GrapheneOS so far.
My second biggest annoyance was having to swap profiles for mundane stuff like hotspots in the first place, but at least I could fix that quite easily by swapping from a secure password to a short PIN.

zashikiwarashi

koocmit It actually is harming my usage, believe it or not.

Like the above user, I use multiple languages for my keyboard, and use the system keyboard button to quick switch between them. Enabling the soft key on Gboard can be used to bypass this and stay within itself, but it replaces important keys (in Japanese 10-key it replaces the dakuten on and off, leading to a lot of bad inputs since that key is used a lot), so having the system key do the language swap without incurring AOSP keyboard load/unload times on accidental double presses is important for me. It's really frustrating since I often type a lot with both keyboards, even in the same sentence at times.

zashikiwarashi

koocmit also regarding lock outs, since I forgot to mention in the other reply, this definitely feels like something that could either be ignored for PIN-only users or done on reboot rather than on user switch, or a toggle for "show AOSP keyboard in keyboard switch menu" or something. I don't deny that some users will find it useful, but as I've stated in the post above it's actively getting in the way of me using the device normally.

de0u

zashikiwarashi I don't speak for the GrapheneOS project, but I am skeptical that the developers would add code to optionally make the keyboard-switch button skip some keyboards (and then re-merge that code for each release).

I can imagine that a pull request might be considered with code that would auto-enable the system default keyboard at boot time instead of at user-switch time, if the code were high-quality and well-tested (e.g., on multiple devices including the Tablet and at least one Fold). But that might turn out to be harder than it sounds.

koocmit

zashikiwarashi Thanks for sharing, I did not foresee this issue. I would think this is a very low priority for developers as of now. If this is indeed a problem as you and the other commentator describe, I think the first step would be to open a ticket on the os issue tracker.

Sharing my experience, I use 3 or more languages to switch between on Gboard. Typically, clicking the globe icon on the bottom right when using the keyboard switches the languages, without any need to open the long menu. Multiple clicks switch languages fast enough. Gboard is also intelligent enough to switch back to my primary once I am done instead of having to click through all languages again. Memorized patterns of 1 click for X language and 2 clicks for Y language and so on, then click again to switch to primary works for me. Maybe this helps :)

randomname

yea as said before the problem with not being possible to disable they aosp keyboard anymore is that it add another keyboard to the language button at the right so when you want to change language input you have to cycle between 3 keyboard instead of 2, at least before it was possible to disable it until next reboot but someone complained about it being reenabled and then they disabled the feature to disable it lol https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/6916, not a big deal but it's a little annoying, maybe it can be disabled with adb i ll look into that when i ll be motivated