Everywhere else on my cell phone, my keyboard always has a row of helpful tips and hints about the next word I want to type in.
But whenever I am using Discourse sites here in Chrome, it’s just like I’m in password entry mode or something. There’s absolutely no help from my keyboard. It’s like I finally will have to learn how to spell or something.
I’m using Chrome on my phone and I get my ‘suggested words’ pop up:
Perhaps it’s an issue with your particular device?
I also have the problem with the missing suggestions. They just disappeared someday. But still work when I used the fast edit.
So the suggestions can work with this device, this chrome version and this keyboard.
But it is not only a discorse issue. If I change the keyboard app and use another one the suggestions work everywhere.
I did some research when the suggestions disappeared. I think there was a change in chrome to integrate suggestions (those that e.g. the google search shows, while you type) into the keyboard suggestions. But that only works with new keyboard apps.
So the keyboard app is an issue, but since it still works in the fast edit window there could be something discourse could do to make it work.
Editing the post with my usual keyboard app
Using fast edit and my usual keyboard app
Editing with a different keyboard app
I just used Developer Tools to see what is so special about this field that I am typing in here.
Ready?
<textarea ... autocomplete="off">
Cruel Cruel Cruel!
Why Why Why?
I bet it is to kill fastfingered Jimmy’s spam posts or something.
But you it wiped out my main way of typing too. Now I have to learn to spell again!
Affected my Android 8 ASUS Zenfone. Android 13 Samsung Galaxy OK.
Well, though, the <textarea ... autocomplete="off"> label doesn’t mean what you think it does…
Its actual intent is not to cause the browser to generate a drop-down box like this:
OK, I’ll test on this page, Autofill Smoke Test .
100% proof this affecting my stock ASUS Zenfone 3:
Sure you might say, “Well your ASUS keyboard isn’t smart enough. It’s taking auto complete much too seriously. Use another keyboard.” Well you’re the guys who to turned off auto complete for no good reason…
So we see according to ASUS, auto complete means adding that row of choices that you see at the top of the keyboard. And now its gone, dead, Six Feet Under.
If I stumbled into this, that probably means there’s a thousand users that I’ve have “saved the lives” of today.
If I hadn’t found it they would probably just be day in day out silently accepting their bad luck… not knowing who had absconded with their row of choices.
Sure my latest Samsung isn’t affected. See that’s why you never knew the damage it was causing: it doesn’t happen on every company’s cell phone. And for the ones that it does, don’t expect the people to be able to upgrade it to some new version.
But anyway this is the only bulletin board system I’ve ever encountered that insists on turning off auto complete even in big text fields.
Makes me want to go on a spelling strike!
We did have a good reason for attempting to turn it off originally, Chrome was trying to autofill people’s personal information (like their address) into the composer, and that was a little alarming: New post/reply sometimes tries to autocomplete my address on Chrome
It’s unfortunate that some Android keyboards seem to use autofill to disable a keyboard’s predictive text, that’s really not the correct use of autocomplete="off" at all according to the HTML spec, and it conflicts with Chrome’s (also incorrect) usage of autocomplete.
Does your keyboard work as expected on this test form? https://codepen.io/wavyknife/full/JjBVxMM
The inputs on that test form have autocomplete="discourse" which might be good enough to disable Chrome’s overzealous autocomplete without disabling it in other situations.
Okay, it’s a deal!
I thought they already implemented your solution in New post/reply sometimes tries to autocomplete my address on Chrome - #69 by sam but I guess they just made it back to “off” later.
It is super high priority that this be added to some advanced preference. In other words there should be some textboxes in advanced preferences, where a user can adjust these critical strings. As we have seen there’s no one size fits all.
This might make all the difference vs. painful typing for years while the user is waiting for the administrator to install the next upgrade.
Yes I’m saying some years later when the same thing happens again to a different user, they’ll be able to go straight into advanced preferences and adjust the autocomplete etc. strings to enable them to type happily ever after.
No I’m not saying to have them import some stylesheet. That’d be too complicated for some users. I’m just saying that each of such critical strings should be exposed there in advanced preferences for the user to be able to adjust if needed.
Especially on cell phones, where one cannot just install some browser plug in.
No there is no security concern. It just like allowing users to choose what color they want to paint their house. Or okay, if they like leaving their screen door open during the daytime or something.
Also, we note the problem doesn’t occur with Google Gboard, only ASUS ZenUI keyboard.
