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I am running Ubuntu 20.04 on a 2-in-1 laptop. Out of the box the OSK is almost unusable. Is there a way to make it behave more like a native mobile device?

What it does now:

  • If I have OSK turned off in settings the OSK never comes up, even when the keyboard/touchpad are disabled by turning the laptop into a tablet.

  • With OSK turned on in settings, the OSK will appear when I focus an input field, but only in gnome-based apps, not in anything else I use, e.g. chrome. Only having it work in some apps but not others makes it practically unusable.

  • The OSK appears when I focus an input field in laptop mode, with keyboard(s) enabled. This is very annoying because I don't want to use the OSK in laptop mode at all and I have to constantly close it.

Is there any way to have the OSK disabled in laptop mode, but enabled for every input field in tablet mode?

Ideally it should work like this:

  • OSK never appears in laptop mode, possibly with an option to allow it if the input field is touched.

  • OSK appears for every input field in every app when in tablet mode.

  • It would also be acceptable, though still a bit annoying, to be able to call up the OSK by tapping a button in tablet mode. Though it should still never appear automatically in laptop mode.

StrongFish
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2 Answers2

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It is fairly straight-forward is to use onboard when logged in: I think you have to turn it on and off manually, but I don't think it will be activated automatically, when you don't want it. (You still need the gnome OSK at the log in screen.)

sudo apt install onboard

You can have onboard running but hidden and click on its icon enter image description here when you want to activate it (when turning the computer into tablet mode).

Another advantage with onboard is that it has a complete keyboard, matching the physical keyboard.

sudodus
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It seems that this is only a problem with Wayland. When I use X the OSK works exactly as I want.

Thanks to @sudodus for the hint. I used this answer to find out how to switch to X.

StrongFish
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