Android Soft Keyboard Solution

[XiongChangnian]

If you are trying to play Minetest on Android without a hard keyboard, you are being foolishly stubborn... as am I. Let's us stubborn fools stick together.

What follows will not solve all your troubles... not even all your kbd-related troubles... but may help. This process will allow you to strike F-keys with effect and get some refractory formspecs to accept kbd input.

1. Install Hacker's Keyboard. This tool is useful far beyond the game. You do not need to uninstall your other kbds.
   • Despite its name, HK contains no magic kracking abilities. It's just a full-featured kbd.
2. Some apps allow you a button with which you can switch kbds. Minetest is not among these yet. Find one and switch to HK. This workaround only works if HK is active.
3. Open the HK app and drill through HK's settings until you find "Permanent notification." Turn it on.
   • I'm deliberately not telling you how to find this setting. Any instructions would be confusingly verbose... I think. Go look.
4. Enter Minetest. When the game expects you to type, HK will pop up. Enjoy many-keyed goodness.
5. When the game does not expect you to type, find the permanent notification in the bar. The bar is hidden by the game so swipe down. Beware vertigo. Tap the notification and out rolls the kbd.
6. Now you can type anyway. You can strike F-keys if you like.

Some well-designed formspecs with text entry fields have a button to accept the typed string. Example: Circular Saw has a Set button.

Other formspecs assume you'll hit a carriage return. These don't work for the Android player. Return is relabeled "Done" and just closes the kbd. The string you typed is now in the formspec but not to stay. If you now close the formspec you will have done nothing.

So yes. Open the difficult formspec, tap the field, enter text or digits, hit Done. Then immediately swipe, tap HK perm note, and bring up the kbd a second time. Now hit Return.

HK does not solve all input problems. But this workaround does address some common cases. Good Luck!

See also: WikiHow

[zultron]

Is there a way to issue a server command on Android without a hard keyboard? I tried opening the HK from the notification as described above and typing "/", but no luck. Other keys do seem to work, though.

Thanks for this VERY HELPFUL post. It will reduce a little of the pain running MT on Android.

[micheal65536]

Is there a way to issue a server command on Android without a hard keyboard? I tried opening the HK from the notification as described above and typing "/", but no luck. Other keys do seem to work, though.

You do it the same way you send a chat message. Just type your command in (including the "/") as if you were sending a chat message. Your regular Android software keyboard should have a "/" key somewhere, probably with other punctuation or symbol characters.

On a desktop/laptop pressing the "/" key is a shortcut for opening the chat pane with a slash pre-filled at the beginning but aside from that commands work the same way as chat messages.