S-Pen Handwriting to Text in Survey123 Field App

[nealtk]

Our group of inspectors is in the process of switching over from a Dell Rugged running Windows to Galaxy Tab S7s running Android and are trying to work out how to use a Handwriting to Text option in Survey123.  The last  I checked the Windows version of the field app allow the MS Handwriting keyboard to be used, but we are having trouble getting handwriting to text to function in Android.

I searched the community and only found a post from 2019(https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/stylus-use-on-a-survey/m-p/828605 )  which seems like it should be a valid solution but isn't working any more.  

In any other program (Gmail, SMS) the default handwriting keyboard (Samsung) shows up and works just fine.  We installed GBoard and got it to function as intended in other apps as well.  When we go into the Survery123 Field App, the handwriting keyboard for both the default Samsung Keyboard and the GBoard seems to be blocked by the Survey123 app and can't get the handwriting panel to appear.

We would like this feature to fill in the notes/comments fields in our Surveys.  The image/sketch workaround will not work for our surveys.  

Any thoughts, solutions, explanations?

[DougBrowning · Accepted solution]

Just today I had to add the predictivetext option for Android to get the speech to text button to show up - maybe this will work for s pen too.  Just a guess.

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/xlsformsappearance.htm

[Anonymous User]

@nealtk As @DougBrowning suggests, on Android, predictive text is disabled by default, as it causes known issues with the the character count and non-English languages that use characters. 

When predictive text is disabled for a keyboard, Android also removes the ability to use speech-to-text and handwriting conversion. Not sure why they do this, I am guessing for those features to operate it needs to predict what is converted from the input received.

You can enable predictive text for input questions following this documentation:

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/xlsformsappearance.htm#GUID-687AC1A3-E779...

Regards,

Phil.

[nealtk]

Thanks @DougBrowning and @Anonymous User, looks like that works, at least with my initial test.  @Anonymous User so when you say issues with character count,  could that effect the character limit set for a specific field i.e. if a comments field had a limit of 255 characters, could there be a possibility that this issue would bypass the character limit and possibly cause issues with submissions if the 255 limit is exceeded?

Also, is there a way to turn predicitivetext on for an entire form, or does it have to be done on each individual field?