I have found that my Belkin mobile wireless keyboard doesn’t allow for general shortcuts in Scrivener for iOS (i.e. cmd-i for italics, cmd-b for bold, etc). However, when I try these commands via my magic keyboard they suddenly work. I’m debating about getting a new wireless keyboard (as I can’t use my magic keyboard because it is being used by another computer), but I’m wondering if this is a software issue; that is, only apple products work properly with apple products.
I know Keith you explained a little about this before, but quite frankly, I didn’t really get it. If you or anyone could explain it in laymen’s terms that’d be greatly appreciated.
Yosemite, many people on the board (including myself) are using third party keyboards with no problem. From your earlier posts, it sounds like your Belkin is defective. Try it with a friend’s iOS device, and if it doesn’t work, return it for a refund if you can.
Wait just a minute…So here is the thing. Keyboard shortcuts on my belkin work for iOS in-house apps. Mail, notes, calculator, work fine with my belkin. I can cmd-r to reply, shift-cmd-d to send, etc. It’s only Scrivener that belkin seems to be having issues with. I’ve enabled third party keyboard in the scrivener settings, so It should work.
I’m going to investigate with other keyboards eventually but I just thought to put this out there in the event someone else is having similar bugs
The keyboard is working, finally. I had to disconnect, and reconnect the Bluetooth connection several times, but finally cmd b makes things bold, i makes things italic, so on and so forth.
So I think I’ve eliminated Scrivener as being the culprit. I think. Either the iPod has a problem with Bluetooth connections, or the keyboard is at fault. I don’t have the funds to deal with the former, so I am going to be on the lookout for a good keyboard eventually to replace this one eventually.
If there are keyboards that I should NOT get, please let me know.
Oh yeah and folks, don’t get the Belkin. It’s cheap, but it has issues as I’ve illustrated hitherto.
The third-party keyboard support is for software keyboards, due to a bug in iOS that we encountered in beta; Keith kindly supplied a workaround. As far as I know it has no effect on hardware keyboards.
Well scrivener does seem either to affect or is affected by my little belkin. Other apps don’t seem to be affected. This is not to say that scrivener doesn’t work properly with belkin. Sometimes the shortcuts all work perfectly. But sometimes none of them do (and yet they still work in other apps). Troubleshooting this is a bit tricky but I felt it important to alert L&L just in case.
I will experiment with other keyboards in due course and report back should there arise a need.
I ended up with a Logitech K380 with 3 bluetooth connections for my iMac, Air and iPad. After returning the Zagg slim book and the apple smart keyboard, this little inexpensive 10 inch is PERFECT. In case anyone’s looking for a good fit.
Martie
I’ve used a wide variety of bluetooth keyboards for iPad over the years. I’ve even worn out a Microsoft kb and a Logitech kb.
I finally settled on the Brydge Air keyboard. It has a phenomenal tactile feel to the keys, the spacing is perfect, the Enter and Shift keys are in the proper positions, and it is backlit at night. It is a fabulous keyboard that’s almost the same exact size as Apple’s wireless keyboard.
Plus, it creates a perfect cover of the same material and texture as the iPad.
I’ve come up with another ‘gotcha’. I have a “Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard i5” which I bought soon after I got my iPad Air 2, and I’ve used it without problems—that is not including mistyping a for ’ or " because the key is small and close to the Return key, also not helped by my tremor—until the upgrade to 9.3.4. The iPad now refuses to pair with it, though my MBA did with a little humming and hahing … not what the MBA expected!
It’s something to do with the iPad. The keyboard pairs with my iPhone 6 ok, but with the iPad, it tells me to check that the keyboard is switched on—it is—and in range—the iPad is in the channel on the keyboard which acts as a support!—so something is weird. Below the list of things it should connect to, where it searches for other bluetooth devices, it just shows the spinning “busy” symbol. I must try connecting to the other devices it should know, but I think the problem is the iPad, not the keyboard.
I just bought one, too. One thing I find rather irritating is that after writing an uppercase letter and deleting it, it types another uppercase letter, even without holding Shift, just like the software keyboard does. I need to press Shift once after I deleted the uppercase letter, without holding it, to get a lowercase letter again, again just like the software keyboard.
Does your setup behave the same way? Any tip on how to disable it?
Update on my situation. I had to reboot the iPad, remove the existing connection to the keyboard, shut down the iPad, re-open it … then it finally found the Logitech keyboard and re-paired. So all’s finally well.
Yeah guys would you mind letting us all know if shortcuts work in scrivener? I’m trying to compile a makeshift list to figure what keyboards are good and what are not for typing with scrivener.
I use a logi create keyboard with my iPad Pro 12.9" and it has always worked flawlessly with scrivener–even back to the beta. I even figured out if you hold down the cmd button, a list of shortcuts will pop up.
My little iPod doesn’t seem to show anything when I press down the cmd button on my Belkin for any length of time. I’m wondering, is this a feature specifically on iPad, or do iPhones and iPods also have this feature?
I’m trying to determine if this is a problem with my keyboard, or it is just not an option in iOS devices that are not tablets.
Doesn’t seem to work on my iPhone 5c, Apple Magic Keyboard. Probably a screen space issue, and so won’t work for any non-tablet device (save possibly 6/S Plus, but I doubt it.)
