Can Keyboardy be used to type the Quran with tashkeel?
Keyboardy provides the basic marks used in vowelled Quranic text: fatha, damma, kasra, sukun, shadda, the three forms of tanween, and alef wasla ٱ, on both Android and iPhone. On iPhone it also has the dagger alef ◌ٰ and the maddah ◌ٓ, which the Android version does not. The annotation marks of the Uthmani script, such as the pause marks, the small meem and the sajdah sign, are not in Keyboardy on either platform. So Keyboardy suits typing a verse or a vowelled word with the basic marks in a message or a post; to reproduce Quranic text with all its letters and marks as in the mushaf, it is more accurate to copy it from a trusted digital mushaf, such as the editions of the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran, than to type it by hand. The marks Keyboardy types are standard Unicode characters, so they display as typed in any app that shows Arabic text.
How do I put shadda and a vowel on the same letter?
To put shadda and a vowel on one letter in Keyboardy, type the letter first, then shadda, then the vowel, as in «مُحَمَّد»: the second meem, then shadda, then fatha. On Android, shadda takes two taps, ⇧ then shadda, and fatha takes two more, or you can pick each mark from the long press on the full stop without opening the marks row. On iPhone you pick shadda from the long press on the tashkeel key, then fatha from the same long press; for shadda with tanween fath, a single tap on the tashkeel key after the shadda is enough, because tanween fath is what that key types on a tap. For a fully vowelled word on Android, the long press on the full stop is quicker, because it never switches away from the letters row.
Does tashkeel affect searching for stickers and clips?
Tashkeel does not affect search in Keyboardy. When you search for a sticker, GIF or clip, the Keyboardy server removes the marks and tatweel from the query before matching it, folds the forms of alef, meaning أ, إ, آ and alef wasla, into one alef, and folds alef maqsura and hamza on yeh into yeh. So a vowelled «مَرْحَبًا» reaches the same results as «مرحبا» without marks, and «أحلى» and «احلى» reach the same result. That means typing with full tashkeel in your conversations does not spoil the stickers and clips Keyboardy suggests above the keys as you type. The same applies to the suggestion strip and to search inside the stickers section, on Android and iPhone, with no setting to change.
Can I type with tashkeel without installing an app?
Yes. The Arabic keyboard page on the Keyboardy website works straight in the browser, on a computer or a phone. It has an always-visible tashkeel row with the eight marks plus tatweel and hamza, and a ⇧ key for hamza forms such as أ, إ and آ. On a computer you can type on your normal keyboard and the keys turn into Arabic using the standard Arabic layout, with the marks on Shift: Shift with Q types fatha, with E damma, with A kasra and with X sukun. When you are done, the text copies with one button and pastes wherever you like. Everything typed on the Arabic keyboard page stays in the browser and is never sent to any server. The page needs no sign-in and no browser extension, and the text can be pasted into a search engine, a document or a message.
Open the Arabic keyboard in your browser
