Thursday, November 24, 2016

Gif keyboard is coming to Android versions starting from Android 3.2 Honeycomb – Androidworld

One of the new features of Android 7.1 Nougat is that by default, there is support for adding media via the keyboard. This feature is also coming to older Android versions.



Fragmentation on Android

Fragmentation is a common term when it comes to Android: there are so many different devices, but also different Android versions in circulation. When a new Android version is released, it takes years before even half of the active users with a device with this version.

Google offers a few ways to bring new features to older Android versions. One of them is Google Play services, an app that in the background automatically up-to-date and continuous, among other security enhancements. The other is the support library, a collection of capabilities that developers have in their apps can use features of new Android versions also on older versions.

Developers can use version 25.0.0 of the support library, where the version number corresponds to the internal version number of Android 7.1 Nougat, now also support for inserting media from the keyboard in legacy apps to add.

Animated gifs messages and graphics

How does that work adding images and other media from the keyboard exactly? First, the application must specify which types of input it expects. That there will be a messenger app more than a form, for example, the income tax return. Short-sighted developers can now also specify that they also offer support for images and gif messages.

Gifjes from the Google-keyboard

The other side of the story is that the keyboard apps also support the need to provide for the entering of other things than just text. There are already several apps that more or less do, by, for example, a link to a gif you post, but with the new functionality, and the fact that the vast majority of active Android devices now support, means that it is not long more it takes before there are many more keyboard apps that we images and other files can add.

Availability

Google already provides support for adding images and gif messages with the keyboard app. The version with support for gif messages is currently only available on Android 7.1 Nougat, but it will probably also be available for older Android versions. Developers need their apps updating to support for adding images from the keyboard.

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