I made the first stable release of eekboard, yet another on-screen keyboard software package. Some time ago I blogged about using it on a tablet PC and listed a few issues. Since then, I went on a trip with the tablet (without laptop), where I noticed a lot more issues, notably:
- I tend to tap wrong locations on screen and need to delete the previous character and type again. The extra steps are cumbersome.
- I want key repeat for some keys, particularly backspace.
- Also I want cursor keys when using Unix shell.
- Modifier keys should be marked when they are locked/latched.
Now most of them are resolved and I can comfortably use my tablet PC as a laptop alternative.
Changes summary:
- Now IBus input-method events can be used as an OSK trigger, in addition to accessibility events through AT-SPI. Since IBus supports a variety of clients (GTK, XIM, Qt, and Emacs), eekboard can be automatically enabled with most applications I use daily.
- A delay can be added before hiding the OSK window on focus-out, to prevent window flickering when moving focus from a text entry to another.
- In fullscreen mode, eekboard now tells WM that it is a dock (or panel), so application windows do not overlap with the OSK window.
- Key press can be replaced with another key press by sliding a finger to other keys. This helps prevent mistyping.
- Key can be repeated by long press.
- Setup dialog is added.
- Server-client library and the D-Bus protocol are revamped, inspired by libcaribou.
Video: (original ogg version)
eekboard 1.0 on tablet from Daiki Ueno on Vimeo.
Packages are available for Fedora:
Settings for tablet PC:
# use IBus input method events rather than AT-SPI focus events $ gsettings set org.fedorahosted.eekboard focus-listener 'ibus' # hide OSK window when focus is on non-editable widgets $ gsettings set org.fedorahosted.eekboard auto-hide true # start eekboard in fullscreen mode $ gsettings set org.fedorahosted.eekboard start-fullscreen true
I would recommend to use your tablet with the shorter side at the top, to keep the workspace square enough even when the OSK window is displayed.
Thanks for that ! Realy awesome thing
sad that this is not in the ubuntu repos 
Maybe I’ll try to package it in Debian, once all the required libraries are available.
I have ran into a problem , I changed the keyboard layout to uk, when i start eekboard i get the following error.
$eekboard
Can’t set keyboard “uk”
Is there a way to get the default layout back so that i can use the keyboard ?
ah, i got the keyboard working i did
$gsettings set org.fedorahosted.eekboard keyboard us
Hi
Does eekboard supports right-to-left languages like Persian?
I add Persian language into my Fedora 16, but eekboard always shows English characters.
What do you think to add “swipe” capability like androids keyboard (eg.http://www.cootek.com/) ?
It would become the best keyboard for a tablet: 10 time better than “handwriting recognition”.
Hi, I just tried to compile the eekboard-1.0.3 sources from the fedora rpm src package on my Arch Linux. eekboard keeps crashing (no debug prints, no exit code). eekboard-server the same.
First thing I noticed: The python files are python2 files and Arch defaults to python3. After fixing that I started eekboard-server eekboard -e. eekboard still crashs silently. The server crashes now with
(eekboard-server:25288): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_unref: assertion `value->ref_count > 0′ failed
[1] 25288 trace trap (core dumped) eekboard-server
eekboard looks realy interesting, maybe I can build a package for arch linux if you can help eventually… I’ll try git later.
Well, 1.0.3 is a bit old. There are newer tarballs at https://github.com/ueno/eekboard/downloads and the latest version is 1.0.8.
By the way, I’m moving to help GNOME’s caribou to replace eekboard, which you can also check
A new package was born. This is my very first one, please bear with me:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/eekboard/