Can you explain the use-case for transparency?
Yes. So having a toggle is useful for people with low mobility because an osk takes up a huge section of the screen. It’s not uncommon to see half your 15” screen being a keyboard and the other half being what little of a gajim window you can make out
Right now luckily most applications are Wayland but we occasionally run into some older programs like gtkatlantic which would use xwayland
Other examples are flashpoint, streamlink twitch GUI, and pokerth
Thanks for the feedback, some questions:
In the plans, if you’d like to add any accessibility use-case please do so here or in the linked issue.
Could you give us more feedback on how you use the full keyboard layout? In which cases do you use the modifier and function keys? Like in the terminal or in other programs? Please comment here or in the issue.
What do you mean by changing font? Is that the font of the keyboard or the one of the input text? If it is for accessibility reasons, like contrast, shouldn’t it be done system wide or is there a specific reason to do it only on the osk? Please leave some feedback here in the comments on in this issue.
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Ctrl Esc Arrow keys, absolutely necessary and badly needed! (Lenovo Ideapad Duet 3 with PMOs, plasma mobile - almost perfect! just needs the keyboard….)
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And I found qmlconsole which does enough for terminal usage, but having it everywhere will make the dream come closer. Just need some more touch friendly apps on kde-mobile to make my day!
@frdbr Hi, I am sorry for the delayed response.
My usecases for floating OSK,
- I need it for gaming as an accessibility user. While gaming in borderless window mode, it needs to be always on top and resizable at edges. It should be movable to any part of the screen, preferably by using the window decoration/titlebar.
- Floating OSK is useful in general, where I need it to be open and use it without it taking over huge screen area and obstructing other programs.
- Sometimes I need the OSK to be floating inside full screen programs. Example, I need to use it in full screen browser sessions or full screen gaming. This feature is optional but useful if it can be implemented.
Basically the full keyboard layout is needed for accessibility users as a replacement to the physical keyboard. I do all my keyboard operations through OSK. Here is a list of some of my usecases/examples.
- While typing in some text fields and terminal, I need to use the arrow keys for finer control.
- I need the ctrl, shift, super and other modifiers to execute shortcuts like copy, paste, show desktop (useful to minimize full screen programs), etc.
- I use ctrl and shift latch/lock during text and file selections.
- I need the function keys for shortcuts like alt+f4, which are useful to exit full sreen programs and programs that doesn’t respond to clicks.
The request for changing themes is mostly for visual purpose and is not required for accessibility. The OnBoard app has the option to change themes. Some OSKs use full black theme which may not be liked by some users. It would be nice if we can choose the colour theme of the OSK and its keys. It can also be useful for phone keyboard themes like in Android Gboard.
I have used GJS OSK and felt that its fonts were too thin in small windows. When I used bold font in its settings, it was usable but I personally didn’t like it. So it would be nice if the font is customisable in case the users don’t like it. My suggestions,
- OSK follows system font
- Separate font customisation for the OSK in its settings
- If the font is predetermined and can’t be customised, then please choose a good font that is legible in all OSK window sizes (especially small windows).
I would also like to add another request. If the OSK keys are clicked and held, the key should be repeated. It has many use cases. Example,
- Moving cursors with arrow keys, especially in terminal
- It has many uses in gaming. I always use it for view rotation in games.
I noticed that voice typing feature is noted with Windows OSK and Gboard reference. This is very helpful for accessibility users, thanks to the devs for consideration. I hope it can be implemented well.
I have one more request. Is it possible to have custom layout of OSK? For example, while gaming I only need a few set of keys relevant to the game instead of the full keyboard layout. It would be nice if I can create a bunch of layout config files (need documentation guide) and switch between them using OSK settings drop-down. This is an optional request, would be nice if it can be implemented.
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I’m glad there are considerations for plasma-bigscreen (TVs), and thanks for the opportunity for feedback
One that I don’t see mentioned yet for phones and tablets is that of a keyboard mode that would emulate a modern controller. That being with arrow keys, ABXY/XO□∆, shoulder buttons, analog sticks, menu buttons, etc.
The vision would be for desktop games on phones/tablets that expect a full keyboard/mouse or a controller instead of a touchscreen, you could still use well on a touchscreen device. Similar to how keyboards let you switch between languages, emoji, numberpad, there would be a gamepad option.
In portrait mode, would work similarly to how the osk works, take up the same amount of space, let you split the keyboard for smaller hands.
In landscape mode, similar, but here on smaller devices the controls would be in a more narrow arrangement on the bottom. In addition to splitting the controls apart for small hands or larger tablets, ideally there would be a third split mode that puts the controls as two sidebars on the shorter end of the phone/tablet, which would work well for maximizing screen real estate of the game.
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I came here to give feedback and found that waffles and fr3nzy-029 have covered most of what I had to say and that these are significant accessibility features. A
My own additions that I don’t think they covered, per @frdbr’s request.
- Full Keyboard: in addition to aforementioned keys, all numerical input is not equal, as numpad input is sometimes specifically called by legacy software.
- Configuration is currently immensely confusing. I’ve found older documentation indicating that the keyboard is configurable, but it took my awhile to determine that this was only achievable through config files and not through either of the relevantly named settings areas in e System Settings utility.
- I do very much appreciate the taskbar widget to enable and disable the OSK. However, I was surprised that there is no way to “force” the OSK to present itself for generic input. I don’t doubt that the current way of only appearing when tapping into a text field is intuitive for many users, but being able to summon the OSK reliably and use it for global input is still important. I’m sorry if this functionality is included in what others are describing as a floating OSK.
- Following the above, currently the OSK only appears on my device when a text field is selected using touchscreen input. Using mouse input, the keyboard stays hidden, presumably working from the assumption that input is either mouse+KB or touchscreen. This effectively prevents using the OSK with a mouse, which is my most common way of using it.
As I’m afraid I sound ungrateful, I do want to say thatI am immensely grateful to the devs for implementing this even if I find it unsuitable in its current state, as the lack of accessible accessibility features on this and other linux platforms has been instrumental in why I and many peers haven’t migrated from MS over the years.
I want to switch over to Linux but I need better accessibility. Windows and android have osk. I can use mouse to swipe type. Please add this feature
Clicking letter by letter is slow
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I just installed KDE because I have a visual impairment, and the virtual keyboard in GNOME doesn’t work with all applications, including Chromium, which offers better accessibility. I’m trying to activate the new virtual keyboard, but nothing happens when I select it. Why?
Thank you for your feedback, could you please elaborate on how swipe support is used for accessibility?
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Muscle dystrophy. Unable to lift arms to certain levels. Fingers and hands are not relaxed in physical keyboard position. Much effort and pain. Especially in bed
Compact one handed mode with swipe type is much easier and faster. Similar to Android or windows osk. Windows also has mouse swipe typing which i prefer compared to touch.
Thank u
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- It would be nice to have a plasmoid to force activate the keyboard.
In bazzite the default terminal is ptyxis (from gnome) and it it doesn’t raise the keyboard when touched. I’ll file a bug with them too.
- Gamepad navigation, useful for the steam deck and similar gaming portables.
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this is where i’m at as well , i’d Like to use it , it looks good , but my only usecase for it really is with a mouse , Maybe with a controller . the lack of mouse-input makes this sorta a big nothing for me just like maliit wass when i migrated to linux a couple years ago . as someone who doesn’t always want to grab a keyboard if i’m looking for something in bed at night i found the one win11 has super useful and frankly the only thing i missed for a while , similarly my fiance’s pc is hooked to the living room couch and keyboard isn’t always close by hence it would be nice to have.
since it doesn’t appear to work via mouse input atm i’m sadly stuck with ‘corekeyboard’ ment for x11 which frankly is pretty ugly and takes up either too much screen or doesn’t show the full layout .
Thank you for the feedback
It would be nice to have a plasmoid to force activate the keyboard.
There is an icon in the system tray to that already, does that solve it for you?
Gamepad navigation, useful for the steam deck and similar gaming portables.
It is something on our radar to discuss the technical aspects and if it will eventually get implemented.
What do you mean by mouse input? You currently can interact with it using a mouse.
Currently, the keyboard only manifests under fairly specific and narrow conditions. You can use the mouse once it’s up, but you can’t make it appear with only mouse input and it won’t stick around.
I cannot, for example, click the keyboard icon in the system tray to actually put the keyboard on my screen. All that does is make it so that if touch input selects a text field, the keyboard will or won’t pop up.
The desired behaviour is for a user to be able to use an arbitrary input (mouse, custom hardware sending a keyboard hotkey, whatever), to cause a keyboard to appear on screen and stay there, rather than only appearing when it thinks the user wants it.
Windows’ on screen keyboard implementation is something to take notes on. For all of the many, many, many flaws in that operating system it is currently the best for accessibility features.
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yeah i just stumbled on a reddit post a bit after making that post a bit alot where the person actually said HOW to force it to show up by editing the /etc/enviroment file and adding KWIN_IM_SHOW_ALWAYS=1 , ….
before that i had no idea Where to put that , possibly overlooked something here but the fact that its not a part of the toggles in the system settings i think is problematic for ppl who might not know where to do that like myself and ppl who are less technically inclined as well like my fiance given its an accessibility concern for other ppl.
having said all this even using it this way is clunky . while i know after some poking that i can have it as on , and them click the symbol (that doesn’t always show in the same tray location) to have it ‘disable’ again i think it would be a better to have it be a popout sorta thing that you can adjust the size of and move around instead of taking over the whole bottom quarter or third of your screen .
still yeah it was my mistake functionally is there IF you force it and a toggle imo when you want it up with an adjustable size would be better than the current implementation tho i understand its a WIP 
edit: ,.. i just read @Poly ‘s post and they discribe what i mean as a toggle better than i did ,… but also a separate toggle in the system settings vs having to edit the enviroment file should exist as well
Hi there, just want to add my feedback limited though it is -
I have a convertible laptop I use as my main computer while working away, currently installed CachyOS w/KDE Plasma desktop. I’ve had a great expereince with it so far coming from Win11, I chose CachyOS because of the gaming packages they install & the more modern filesystems (though I have gone for to a systemd bootloader and ext4 filesystem currently for stability)
now the OSK I understand is relatively new, I think it looks great and as far as I can tell it functions almost perfectly for what I want it to do at work - which is while using the laptop as a portable tablet and periodically entering text or other data into fields in spreadsheets / databases etc.
So far the only issue I have with it is the complete lack of integration with Libre Office
It just completely does not work in a functional way at all when using that software. Now it would be nice to have configuration for customisation, numbers on own keys or different layouts etc. but for me would be better if it just worked with the office software - I thoroughly dislike Windows OS but their OSK worked absolutely flawlessly in this regard.
I did try some other OSKs as well, but none look as good as Plasma, and none appear to work much better in Libre Office - so perhaps it is down to that software to update?
Anyway that’s my feedback. Perhaps I’d fare better on a Gnome or Mint distro, though my laptop is old and not very powerful - so I like the Arch side of things for efficiency.