Using the Enhanced Keyboard

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Drafts provides a customizable enhanced keyboard row when editing, which enables support for simple and complex shortcuts to make editing easier and quicker.

By default, the extended keyboard has several commonly used keys, such as undo, redo, Markdown header/bold, and other quick keys.

 

To edit the extended keyboard, scroll the keyboard row all the way to the right, and tap the edit (pencil icon) button.  In the keyboard editing view, keys can be reordered by drag and drop, or by tapping "edit" and using standard iOS move tools.  You can also swipe left and delete keys in this view.

Tapping on an individual key will open it's edit detail, the "+" button will add a new key.

The keyboard row can be extended by creating additional keys of several types, each is documented below.

• Label: Label keys do not do anything, they are available to add text labels and dividers to the keyboard row to keep it better organized once you start adding numerous keys.  The only value to configure on a label key is the text you want shown.
• Command: Command keys execute one of a set of functions pre-defined by Drafts. These include undo/redo and cursor movements.
• Text: Text keys are shortcuts to insert text.  These are commonly used for quick access to keys which are otherwise difficult to type on the iOS keyboard, but can also contain longer clippings you use often.
• Run Action: Run actions keys are configured with the name of an action in your Drafts action list. When tapped, they run that action as if it had been selected from the action list. This can be a time saver for commonly used actions.
• Script: Script keys run a Javascript to manipulate the edited text.  If you are not interested in writing scripts, you still may find many useful example of Script keys in the Action Directory.  If you are interested in writing them, read the Script keys page for more information.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Hidden Keys

Each key can also have a keyboard shortcut assigned for use with external Bluetooth keyboards connected to your iPhone or iPad. A keyboard shortcut is a combination of Shift-Control-Option-Command key modifiers and a character.  When the selected shortcut is keyed on the external keyboard, it will execute the key associated with it in Drafts.

A key also has a "Hide Key" toggle switch. If enabled, the key will not be visible as a button in the enhanced keyboard row. If it has a keyboard shortcut assigned, this will still be available to be triggered via that shortcut.