Virtual Keyboard & Input Method Editor on Weston/Browser

Virtual Keyboard & Input Method Editor on Weston/Browser

We use Weston and our main application runs in Chromium. I wonder, quite in general, what people use as Virtual Keyboard and Input Method Editor, if they don’t use Qt.

I tried out various combinations (Maliit, Squeekboard, Onboard, IBus, Fcitx5, Google Input Tools, …) but think in all of them I’ve to partially modify the source code to be usable (e.g. Onboard cannot be moved aroud like on X11 out of the box, weston-keyboard would need some skins, …).

Toradex uses GitHub - xontab/chrome-virtual-keyboard: Touch-friendly Virtual Keyboard for Chrome browser in one of their demo images. While this work not that bad, it has no support for e.g. many non Western languages and also does not work together with IBus/Fcitx5, not even Google Input Tools, because events themselves can only be partially be simulated within the browser.

I just wonder what other people/groups are successfully using for a product.

Greetings @thomasstauffer,

Just to chime in from the Toradex side. There’s no one virtual keyboard technology we typically recommend. Other than just standard stuff like weston-keyboard or chromium keyboard which you’ve already evaluated it seems.

For context, what are your exact requirements/needs here? You must have some specific needs since you’ve tried so many different options and were still not satisfied.

Best Regards,
Jeremias

First I’m really interested what other people successfully used - just some opinions (this things which are disliked on Stackoverflow :laughing:). This gives some indication on where it may be worth to invest more time.

But related to the requirements, the ones already mentioned:

  • Works on Weston
  • That it works together with a browser
  • That is supports IME
  • That it can be at least be moved on the screen manually (ideally also via interproces communication to be adjusted automatically to a screen layout)
  • That it can be skinned at least within some limits (to be at least somewhat close to a corporate design guidelines)

I see. Well speaking just from personal experience now. I see you’ve already played around with a lot of the more common options like Maliit, IBus, and such. Off the top of my head I’m not aware of any solution that fulfills all your requirements out of the box.

In general the options for Virtual Keyboards in this case aren’t very numerous. At least when considering the options that actually have some presence and activity around them. Let me poke my colleagues about this and see if they have any suggestions they could throw around.

Best Regards,
Jeremias

1 Like