this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024

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Finally the Onboard on screen keyboard works on Wayland (bugs.launchpad.net)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is too great not to share. Wayland devs hate this trick! I'll copy what I did from the bug report.

As a workaround you can use https://github.com/Supreeeme/extest to make Onboard work. Compile it as a 64 bit library and launch onboard with

env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libextest.so onboard

If you want to use it with KDE you can add

X-KDE-Wayland-VirtualKeyboard=true

to its desktop-file.

I used kwin rules to get rid of window decorations and have it always on top without stealing focus. If someone knows how to make all other windows smaller when it's active that would be great.

Only problem remaining is that sometimes the keys get stuck on touch input. At least on my Steam Deck on OpenSUSE.

Edit: Just noticed that it doesn't work on KDE's lock screen. Hopefully I can find a workaround for that as well.

Edit 2: Was easier than I thought. Just select Maliit as a virtual keyboard and start Onboard manually. If you tap with your finger in a text field Maliit will come up. When you click in a text field Onboard will open. But Maliit also works on the lock screen.

all 18 comments

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[–] ricdeh 16 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You got me excited there for a minute! Though I don't really want workarounds (they are the only way and therefore a necessity / automatically good, but they are not the real thing), I want virtual keyboards with actual native Wayland support, please :(

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Squeekboard is where it's at. By far my favorite onscreen keyboard for Linux and mainly because you can easily create your own layouts using .yaml files. I'm tired of virtual keyboards that omit keys needed for development and terminal use or shove them off to separate tabs. My custom Squeekboard layout fits my needs exactly and I'm pretty fast at typing on it (typing this on it now). I wish it were usable outside of Phosh, though tbf I haven't tried. Between GNOME Mobile, KDE Plasma Mobile, and Phosh (Squeekboard), I choose Phosh primarily because of how much I like Squeekboard.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Yay a Git repo without screenshots

[–] semperverus 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maliit has explicit wayland support and has a kcm

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The problems with Maliit are that it lacks special keys like Ctrl, Alt, Tab, Esq, F1-F12, etc. And you cannot invoke it by yourself to type in XWayland applications or others which don't pull up the keyboard by themselves.

The Gnome keyboard seems to be better in that regard but I couldn't even find its name to pull it up outside of Gnome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And you cannot invoke it by yourself to type in XWayland applications

Yes you can

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How?

I mean, I got a different solution by now, but would be nice to know for the future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

When you have a Xwayland app focused, the Plasma panel will have an upward facing arrow in the system tray. If you tap it, the virtual keyboard will pop up

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not on Plasma Desktop. Maybe on Mobile. But I was not able to find out how to get it to Desktop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I am talking about the desktop. Mobile doesn't have a system tray.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What distribution? No such thing for me with Plasma 6 on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Fedora. Though I just tested it again and the input method icon is now hidden by default, and does not automatically show up when appropriate :|

You can make it always be shown in the system tray configuration, but this should really work out of the box...

[–] semperverus -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Cool. They didnt ask for a fully-featured keyboard, they asked for a wayland-compatible onscreen keyboard.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

In that case please state which Wayland support it has. That's the beauty of standards, there are so many to choose from. And in the case of Wayland keyboards you have to know which one the keyboard and which the compositor supports, making it extra easy for the user.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

I'm not even sure if any of the 3? 4? Wayland protocols allow for a fully featured osk. So this actually feels like the best outcome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

how do i compile as 64bit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Edit: ignore comment, didn't realise it was about the Deck initially!