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On-screen keyboard

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Windows IoT Enterprise, provides developers with many on-screen keyboard features to enhance the user-experience.

Key features

The keyboard implementation provides the following benefits to your headed device development:

Enable On-Screen Keyboard

Windows has a built-in Ease of Access tool called the On-Screen Keyboard that can be used instead of a physical keyboard. You don’t need a touchscreen to use the On-Screen Keyboard. It displays a visual keyboard with all the standard keys, so you can use your mouse or another pointing device to select keys, or use a physical single key or group of keys to cycle through the keys on the screen.

To open the On-Screen Keyboard

Go to Start > then select Settings > Ease of Access > Keyboard, and turn on the toggle under Use the On-Screen Keyboard. A keyboard that can be used to move around the screen and enter text will appear on the screen. The keyboard will remain on the screen until you close it.

Note

To open the On-Screen Keyboard from the sign-in screen, select the Ease of Access button in the lower-right corner of the sign-in screen, and then select On-Screen Keyboard.

To change how info is entered into the On-Screen Keyboard

With the On-Screen Keyboard open, select the Options key, and choose the options you want:

  • Use click sound. Use this option if you want to hear a sound when you press a key.

  • Show keys to make it easier to move around the screen. Use this option if you want the keys to light up as you type.

  • Turn on numeric keypad. Use this option to expand the On-Screen Keyboard to show a numeric keypad.

  • Click on keys. Use this mode if you prefer to click or tap the on-screen keys to enter text.

  • Hover over keys. Use this mode if you use a mouse or joystick to point to a key. The characters you point to are entered automatically when you point to them for a specified time.

  • Scan through keys. Use this mode if you want the On-Screen Keyboard to continually scan the keyboard. Scan mode highlights areas where you can type keyboard characters by pressing a keyboard shortcut, using a switch input device, or using a device that simulates a mouse click.

  • Use Text Prediction. Use this option if you want the On-Screen Keyboard to suggest words for you as you type so you don't need to type each complete word.

Note

  • Text Prediction is available in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. If you want to use one of these languages and it isn't installed, install the language files for that language.
  • If you're using either hovering mode or scanning mode and accidentally minimize the On-Screen Keyboard, you can restore it by pointing to it in the taskbar (for hovering mode) or by pressing the scan key (for scanning mode).
  • If you minimize the On-Screen Keyboard and switch to tablet mode, use the Task view button to get back to the On-Screen Keyboard.

Feature packages

For prototyping (development) images, the on-screen keyboard feature is already included, but you will need to enable it from Device Settings in the Windows Device Portal.

For commercialization, the following optional feature packages will add the on-screen keyboard to your image:

  • IOT_SHELL_ONSCREEN_KEYBOARD
  • IOT_SHELL_ONSCREEN_KEYBOARD_FOLLOWFOCUS

Windows keyboard language layouts

With this release, the supported language layouts have expanded to include the full set of those available in the desktop Windows edition. To allow your users to select between different language layouts, you would typically include selection UI in your application's Settings area. The following API is provided to enable your application to set the language that the on-screen keyboard will use:

Windows.Globalization.Language.TrySetInputMethodLanguageTag

An example of this API can be seen in the IoT Enterprise Default App sample, in the LanguageManager.cs file.

Support for input scopes

In previous releases, only the EmailSmtpAddress input scope was available. In this release, the full set of input scopes is available. The following topic explains input scopes and how to use them in your applications:

Use input scope to change the touch keyboard

Input Method Editor (IME)

This release provides an Input Method Editor, which is required for any language that has more graphemes than there are keys on the keyboard, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Non-obscured text input fields

In previous releases, the touch keyboard might obscure the focused text field so that the user was unable to see what they were typing. This release fixes this problem by automatically scrolling the text field into view so that it's no longer obscured by the touch keyboard.

Dictation mode

When the input language is set to the OS language, which is the default, the voice recognition input feature is available. To show the dictation button in the keyboard, refer to the following section on User Interface configuration.

User Interface configuration

The on-screen keyboard provides several configurable options for its user interface. These are configured via the registry. During development, you can use PowerShell or Secure Shell (SSH). For creating an OEM image, the preferred mechanism for setting registry values is the OEMInput.xml file discussed here:

Runtime customizations

Note

Most of the registry settings documented here will take effect while the on-screen keyboard is visible. This allows you during development to easily try different combinations of settings values, immediately seeing the resulting changes in real time. If a setting does not take effect immediately, you will need to reboot the device in order to see the changes to the keyboard UI.

Keyboard Height

By default, the touch keyboard will use the lower 45% of the screen's height. This may appear too large or small on your device, depending on its size and resolution. You can adjust the height up to a maximum of two-thirds the height of the screen. Any value not in range will be clamped into range. Because this is specified as a floating point value, it allows for pixel-level precision.

Apply the following formula to calculate the percentage: percentage = (100 - <desired_pixel_height>) / <screen_height>

As an example, to change the height to 56.783%, you would set the following registry value:

set OskRootKey=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\IoTShellExtension\OSK
reg.exe ADD "%OskRootKey%" /v MaxHeightPercentage /t REG_SZ /d "56.783" /f

or from PowerShell:

set OskRootKey "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\IoTShellExtension\OSK"
cd $OskRootKey
Set-ItemProperty -Path . -Name MaxHeightPercentage -Type String -Value 56.783

Note

The registry value type must be a String (REG_SZ), so that the fractional values can be represented with. a decimal point. Using DWord (REG_DWORD) will not work, even for whole number percentages.

Additional preferences

The remaining set of preferences is String values in the Preferences subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\IoTShellExtension\OSK\Preferences
Registry Value Default Value Description
AudioFeedback_Disabled "0" "0" enables the key click audio feedback; "1" disables it.
Dictation_Disabled "1" "0" shows the dictation (voice recognition) button; "1" hides it. (see note below)
KeyboardModeEnabled_full "0" "0" disables the full keyboard mode; "1" enables it.
KeyboardModeEnabled_narrow "1" "0" disables the narrow keyboard mode; "1" enables it.
KeyboardModeEnabled_wide "1" "0" disables the wide keyboard mode; "1" enables it.
ModeOrder "wide;narrow;full" The order (from left to right) in which the modes are listed in the mode drop-down menu, if enabled
SettingsMenuKey_Collapsed "0" Hides the mode drop-down menu. Set this to "1" if only one mode is enabled.
Paste_Disabled "0" "0" shows the Paste button; "1" hides it. Change takes effect after reboot.
CloseButton_Disabled "0" "0" shows the Close button; "1" hides the Close button. Change takes effect after reboot.
EmojiKeyEnabled "0" "0" hides the Emoji key; "1" shows it, allowing the user to enter Emoji characters.

Note

Dictation mode requires a speech package to be installed for the selected input language, as well as an audio input device. If a matching speech packages is not installed, the dictation button will not be shown.

All images include the en-US speech language. Other speech packages are installed as optional features. For more information about IoT Features, see IoT Enterprise manufacturing guide.

As an example, to enable only wide keyboard mode, in PowerShell you could do the following:

set OskRootKey "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\IoTShellExtension\OSK"
cd $OskRootKey
mkdir Preferences
cd Preferences
Set-ItemProperty . -Name KeyboardModeEnabled_full -Value "0"      # Optional, since the default is "0"
Set-ItemProperty . -Name KeyboardModeEnabled_narrow -Value "0"
Set-ItemProperty . -Name KeyboardModeEnabled_wide -Value "1"      # Optional, since the default is "1"
Set-ItemProperty . -Name SettingsMenuKey_Collapsed -Value "1"

Additional Resources