Ability to change the keyboard language programmatically

[KarrarMohamed]

I have a page with multiple textfields and some of the textfields require the user to change the current language from arabic to english and vice versa to insert the proper input

So I have searched and figured out this feature is not supported yet

[maheshj01]

Hi @KarrarMohamed, Thanks for filing the issue. This looks like a partial duplicate of #25841

[yqjroy]

I have a page with multiple textfields and some of the textfields require the user to change the current language from arabic to english and vice versa to insert the proper input

So I have searched and figured out this feature is not supported yet

i also need this feature. but i have not found it yet.

[maheshj01]

Everyone who would like to support this feature request please leave a 👍🏻 on the original post. The number of upvotes is one among many measures which help the team members to prioritize the work.

[nero-angela]

I run a vocabulary app, and I get a lot of emails requesting this feature. It would be nice if this feature not only supports English and Arabic cases, but also other languages.

For example, the features that users expect from a vocabulary app are:
If the word TextField is entered in English and the meaning TextField is entered in Korean, the English keyboard appears when the user focuses on the word TextField. Conversely, when the user focuses on the meaning TextField, the Korean keyboard appears.

Of course, this will only work if the user has a keyboard for that language. It would be great if that feature works even if the user is using an external keyboard.

There are native apps that support this feature, and it would be nice if it could be implemented with Flutter as well.

AOS TextView setImeHintLocales
iPhone: Change Keyboard language programmatically
Similar issues: #91752

[abasu0713]

Please bump this up kindly!. This would be great to have. We want to support multiple languages, and our application has a lot of form fields.. The keyboard language takes the default locale. And it would be awesome if we could override that without having to use something like virtual keyboards.

[Etiene]

I make a language learning app and this is one of the most requested features. Both iOS and Android have a way to do this natively, but I don't wanna use views to create a custom input for every text field of my app as so many things could go wrong when doing that.

[alevlako]

This is a highly requested functionality for desktop office and mobile applications. Please pay attention to the possibility to implement it in the core flutter.

[felicedev]

I also need this feature, is that just implemented?

[PetrKubes97]

I'd also love to have this feature.

[MajidDgNXT]

Any update?

[kaomoneus]

@goderbauer this feature seems to be critical for some apps. Could we escalate priority? Thanks!

[justinmc]

Let's look at the feasibility of bringing this feature to the framework

✔️ Do native APIs exist?

It looks like the answer to this is yes on both Android and iOS according to @nero-angela (#99606 (comment)) and @Etiene (#99606 (comment)) above, though I haven't tried it myself.

Is this something we should also support for hardware keyboard languages? For example, changing the system keyboard language from the app in a desktop Flutter app.

❓ Could this be done as a plugin with no framework change?

Maybe this would be better as a plugin that would be called, say, in onFocus, rather than as a TextField parameter. Especially if we don't have an equivalent way of applying this to desktop platforms. Would that still meet everyone's needs? Would it be technically sound, or would calling it on onFocus cause an ugly jump between languages or something?

Next steps

I think someone needs to try out the native API on Android/iOS and determine whether or not it would work as a plugin.

[alevlako]

We already have a plugin with requested functionality, but it does not use a standard keyboard.

[justinmc]

That plugin appears to render the keyboard itself using Flutter. I think we'd need to see something that calls a native API to change the system software keyboard's language, if possible.

[alevlako]

I solved the problem for Windows using pure dart with ffi and have been following this issue for over a year with no changes yet. But I see that the native solution for mobiles exists, because, for example the Google Translate application has the discussed functionality for both Android and iPhone.

[opxdelwin]

+1 for bump ; really need this feature as we're making an app which would need typing in multiple languages...

Solution by @justinmc sounds great

[selvam920]

+1

[yqjroy]

你好，邮件已收到！谢谢！

[yoyo930021]

I study it.

✔️ Do native APIs exist?

Android EditorInfo API, only work above API 24
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/inputmethod/EditorInfo#hintLocales

iOS no any public API, there are some workround in stackoverflow post, but some report no effect. We need more test.

❌Could this be done as a plugin with no framework change?

I try to study flutter code.
I don't think it's possible to implement this with a plugin, but it could be that I'm not familiar enough with it.

Android: https://github.com/flutter/engine/blob/21d336139a9401d6c2d51494249c0ec70fed0224/shell/platform/android/io/flutter/plugin/editing/TextInputPlugin.java#L348
iOS: https://github.com/flutter/engine/blob/21d336139a9401d6c2d51494249c0ec70fed0224/shell/platform/darwin/ios/framework/Source/FlutterTextInputPlugin.mm#L590

[yqjroy]

你好，邮件已收到！谢谢！