Add an On Screen Keyboard to Plasma (for X11)
Open, Needs TriagePublic

Description

The Qt Virtual Keyboard [1] isn't exposed anywhere except the login screen. There are no options anywhere to find it in the accessibility settings. I have not confirmed if this is different in the wayland session [2]. For users who cannot use a keyboard (this can be for various reasons such as: no keyboard, defect keyboard, having a mobility impairment) this is a big usability issue. And if you don't have a keyboard you cannot enable per-application virtual keyboard with QT_IM_MODULE as a workaround because that would require text input.

A promising candidate is qvkbd which is already in some distro repos [3]. It has an indicator that integrates nicely with Plasma for easy hide/show. It's missing some nice-to-have features but it is a huge improvement over the current situation where users on X11.

[1] https://packages.ubuntu.com/source/bionic/qtvirtualkeyboard-opensource-src
[2] https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/05/virtual-keyboard-support-in-kwinwayland-5-7/#comment-70808
[3] https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/X11:LXQt:git/qvkbd/qvkbd.spec?expand=1 https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/qvkbd-git/

Qt virtual keyboard is unfortunately unsuited on an X11 session.

lavender edited projects, added Plasma Accessibility; removed Plasma.
lavender edited projects, added Plasma; removed Plasma Accessibility.
lavender edited projects, added Plasma Accessibility; removed Plasma.

This is what qvkbd looks like next to xvkdb. qvkbd looks better but xvkbd has more functionality.

lavender updated the task description. (Show Details)May 26 2018, 3:49 PM
chempfling added a comment.EditedDec 15 2020, 10:38 AM

Qt virtual keyboard is unfortunately unsuited on an X11 session.

is this still the case?
i m very interested in because the documentation seems to say that Qt virtual keyboard works on X11 now:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtvirtualkeyboard-index.html

The Qt Virtual Keyboard project provides an input framework and reference keyboard frontend for Qt 5 on Linux Desktop/X11, Windows Desktop, and Boot2Qt targets.

what is plasma mobile using here? does anybody know about that?

ognarb added a subscriber: ognarb.Dec 15 2020, 10:48 AM

Plasma Mobile is using Maliit now but it is also using Wayland.