MeaninglessKeyboard

A customizable Android IME (Input Method Editor) built with Jetpack Compose and driven by JSON keyboard layout definitions.

Screenshots

English QWERTY	Bopomofo (Dachen)	Number Pad

Emoji	Key Preview	Pack Management

Features

• JSON-driven layouts - Define keyboard layouts in JSON; import custom layouts from files
• Multiple keyboard packs - Swipe left/right to switch between enabled packs
• Sub-layout switching - Support for lowercase, uppercase, symbols, and custom sub-layouts within a pack
• Material You theming - Keyboard colors adapt to your wallpaper via Material 3 dynamic colors (Android 12+)
• Key preview popup - Visual feedback showing the pressed key label
• Haptic & sound feedback - Vibration and click sound on key press
• Pack management UI - Enable/disable, reorder, and delete keyboard packs from the settings screen
• Security-first import - Imported JSON is validated, sanitized, and re-serialized before storage

Built-in Layouts

Layout	Description
English QWERTY	Standard QWERTY with lowercase, uppercase, and symbols sub-layouts
Emoji	1,184 emojis across 8 categories
Number Pad	Compact numeric keypad
Bopomofo (Dachen)	Taiwanese phonetic input layout

Building

Requires Android Studio with AGP 9.0+ and JDK 11+.

./gradlew assembleDebug
./gradlew installDebug

Setup

1. Install the app
2. Open MeaninglessKeyboard from the launcher
3. Tap Input Method Settings to enable the keyboard in system settings
4. Select MeaninglessKeyboard as your active input method

Importing Custom Layouts

Keyboard packs are defined as JSON files. Example structure:

{
  "name": "My Layout",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "version": 1,
  "defaultLayout": "main",
  "layouts": {
    "main": {
      "rows": [
        {
          "keys": [
            { "label": "A", "output": "a", "width": 1 },
            { "label": "B", "output": "b", "width": 1 }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Key types

• Text output: { "label": "A", "output": "a" } - commits text to the input field
• Keycode: { "label": "Del", "keycode": "BACKSPACE" } - sends a key event (supported: BACKSPACE, ENTER, SHIFT, TAB, ARROW_LEFT, ARROW_RIGHT)
• Layout switch: { "label": "123", "switchLayout": "symbols" } - switches to another sub-layout

Each key must have exactly one of output, keycode, or switchLayout.

Validation limits

Field	Limit
File size	512 KB
Pack/author name	64 characters
Layouts per pack	10
Rows per layout	50
Keys per row	20
Key label	8 characters
Key output	32 characters
Key width	0.5 - 10.0

Testing

./gradlew test

Unit tests cover KeyAction parsing, KeyboardPackSanitizer validation boundaries, and built-in keyboard JSON assets.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.