On 3/12/25 10:25, John Ramsden wrote:
Beyond terminal emulators, my concern - I do not know if this is
founded - is there will be some situations where I cannot input what I
need. Does the application not need to be wayland aware?
--
John Ramsden
On Mon, Dec 1, 2025, at 3:50 PM, Justin Zobel wrote:
On 2 December 2025 9:48:39 am ACDT, John Ramsden
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I require an on-screen keyboard with full functionality similar
to what is provided by onboard. Unfortunately these types of
on-screen keyboards are not found on Wayland, and plasma will be
dropping X11 support in 6.8. I understand there is work being
done to provide a virtual keyboard
(https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-keyboard) for Wayland.
Unfortunately for my use case I need something that works not
only in text fields but globally, similar to the functionality
you would get from a hardware keyboard. I need to be able to
issue inputs into terminals, along with modifier keys etc. As far
as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong) but this is
not the intention of the virtual keyboards that are being
provided by plasma for Wayland.
The integrations to provide virtual keyboards appear to be using
input-method-v1, which allows you to target text inputs. What I'm
looking for is something that is globally available and allows me
to interact with my computer as if I'm using a hardware keyboard.
I want to be able to issue inputs without restrictions (for
example trigger global shortcuts) as if I'm a regular keyboard user.
I've been looking into some options for doing what I am looking
to do, and I was seeking some input from plasma developers to
make sure what I'm attempting to do is actually going down the
supported route. I don't want to build something that is actively
considered misuse of wayland, or is looked at as a security concern.
I see a few options:
* Pretend to be a hardware keyboard via an emulated device such
as using uinput - is this looked down upon since it essentially
goes around Wayland? Would plasma considered blocking something
like emulated devices in the future?
* Ideally use something like zwp_virtual_keyboard_v1 but this
does not seem to be supported by plasma. Is there any intention
to support something like this in the future?
* Use XDG RemoteDesktop Portal - would this be seen as misuse of
the API?
Ultimately my use case is I want a keyboard that sits on my
desktop and allows me to input anything a regular hardware
keyboard would be able to input.
Plasma Virtual Keyboard allows input into terminal emulators like
Konsole. Modifier keys I'm not sure on as I'm not at my PC but it is
something that Qmlkonsole supports so it should in theory be possible
to add this to PVK.
With all things considered, your best option to find out if it will work
for you, is to try it.
