In Android 6, there is a close relationship between software and hardware keyboards. The features and behaviors available from a hardware keyboard depend on which software keyboard is in effect.
For that reason, it is sometimes desirable to switch between different soft keyboards while using a hardware keyboard. However, the obvious way is awkward:
- Pull down the notifications.
- Scroll down to "Select Keyboard" (near the bottom, where else) and activate it.
- Oops, all the choices are greyed out in the menu; to enable them, you must slide the "Virtual Keyboard" setting to On.
- Oops, now the entire menu disappears just because you used this slider. Like toilet paper, it's single-use only! Anyway, the software keyboard appears. You must pull down the notifications again and activate "Select Keyboard". This time the menu items are enabled.
- Pick the soft keyboard you want.
- Activate the menu again, and set the Virtual Keyboard to Off.
There has to be a better way? Ideally a hot key, like the very convenient Ctrl-Space for changing the hardware keyboard layout.
