I mentioned before in the previous post that I have started using a bluetooth keyboard to use with my Note 9. I also mentioned that this particular keyboard I'm using, a Logitech K480, seemed to be working for SMS messaging, Facebook posts, Viber and so on but not quite for FB Messenger. I don't know how it would react with the other Messenger-like apps and I had no inclination to try out the others. I thought there must be a way to make it work.
The problem is when you try to type something in Messenger, you normally would touch the text box and it would open up the text box and the digital keypad and type your stuff in and press the paper airplane symbol to send up your entry. Now for some reason when you do this in conjunction with your bluetooth keyboard, it accepts only one character and closes the text box and you would have to repeat the same process again. So it would be okay to do that if you were only typing something like OK or NO, something short. If you were going to type in an entire phrase or sentence, this would be time-consuming and annoying.
I have scoured the internet for possible solutions. There were suggestions of clearing your data and cache for the Messenger app or uninstalling and reinstalling your app or contacting the Messenger developers or trying another Messenger-like app. None of this appealed to me and I didn't try any of them.
What I did was just to play around with the app, using my keyboard & my phone which uses Android version 9. I tried different function and control keys perfunctorily which took me to different undesired places.
But there was one thing that worked. I pressed longer on the initial text box, not the one that pops up when you touch it, but the one before it. So if you already had other previous messages to/from the other person/group, you would still be seeing those messages and the text box below. I pressed longer on that text box until a symbol like a blue TEARDROP appeared. When that happened I could then type normally as I would be in FB or SMS or any other text-entry app. But I had to wait for the TEARDROP. Mind you this is in Android 9. I don't know if that is the same reaction for other Android versions but I would guess it would be similar.
So there... a simple solution born out of a little bit of patience.
Labels: bluetooth, Messenger, note 9, Samsung