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 tradit

Answer 1

The most bullet prof solution that works across Chrome/Safari etc.. and on both Android and iOS as of 20-nov-2017 will be to detect a change in the height of a div that has a vh height units (viewport height)

Then on any blur/focus change of an input/textarea check if that div now has a height of 30% less (in pixels) than it used to have before that blur/focus event.

CSS:

#height-div{height: 10vh;}

jQuery:

$(document).ready(function() {
    var initialHeight = $("#height-div").height();//gives current height in pixels! We save it for later comparisons 
}

Now here is the magic:

$("input, textarea").focus(function(){
        setTimeout(function(){
            if((initialHeight*0.7) > $("#height-div").height()){//if the current viewport height is smaller than 70% of the original size, it means that the keyboard is up
                //ENTER YOUR LOGIC HERE
            }else if((initialHeight*0.7) < parent.$submit.height()){//if the current viewport height is larger than 70% of the original size, it means that the keyboard is down
            //ENTER YOUR LOGIC HERE
            }
        },500);
});

$("input, textarea").blur(function(){
        setTimeout(function(){
            if((initialHeight*0.7) > $("#height-div").height()){//if the current viewport height is smaller than 70% of the original size, it means that the keyboard is up
                //ENTER YOUR LOGIC HERE
            }else if((initialHeight*0.7) < parent.$submit.height()){//if the current viewport height is larger than 70% of the original size, it means that the keyboard is down
            //ENTER YOUR LOGIC HERE
            }
        },500);
});