Virtual Keyboard and Layout

[Arjen Hiemstra]

Hi People,

Right now, at least on OpenSUSE Active uses the plasmaboard as a popup for the 
virtual keyboard. In my opinion, this works great. 

I have just one request to make here: Would it be possible to add arrow keys 
to the layout? This is one of the things I miss most on almost all the virtual 
keyboards I have encountered so far. Simply being able to press 
right/left/up/down to navigate a text area is in my opinion critical for all 
text input, especially on a virtual keyboard where it is even easier to enter 
the wrong character. In addition, it would allow me to use up/down in konsole 
to reuse the previous command. :p If it is an issue with no one having the 
time to implement it, I am willing to take a look at the code if someone can 
point me in the right direction.

Also, I recall some discussion on #active about replacing the plasmaboard with 
the MeeGo virtual keyboard. If I can be so bold: Please do not do this! I have 
been doing stuff with MeeGo for the last few months and while several things 
are quite nice, I would not count the virtual keyboard among them. I am not 
exactly sure what the issue is with it, but I personally find it far easier to 
enter text using the plasmaboard than the MeeGo keyboard.

If it is an issue about maintenance, again, I am willing to do some work on 
the plasmaboard to make it more feature-complete. There are, I think, 
currently four things that the MeeGo keyboard offers that the plasmaboard 
misses:

- Locking of "function"/caps lock by double tapping, similar to how it is done 
on the n900.
- Swipe down to hide the keyboard.
- Swipe left/Swipe right to change keyboard layout.

Of these, the first two seem trivial to implement. The last one seems more 
tricky, depending on how the current keyboard determines its layout.

Cheers,

Arjen Hiemstra