https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434038
--- Comment #11 from Sergio <sergio.calleg...@gmail.com> --- Let's see if this helps testing and as a consequence the consolidation of the development of Maliit. Currently there are many issues, that I would like to summarize as follows: 1. Maliit looks like a keyboard for a mobile phone or tablet. It has alphanumeric characters, and it lets you write texts, with localization. As is it appears in no way ready for "convergent" devices, such as powerful tablets or dual in ones laptops where you may or may not be using a detachable keyboard. On these devices the expectation is that in lack of a physical keyboard you should be able to carry out most activities (though with limited ergonomics) on the virtual one. Unfortunately, with Maliit you cannot use accelerators, terminals, nor most KDE applications that depend on keys such as CTRL, ALT, ESC, TAB, etc. I personally have a dual in one laptop, and it is totally useless in KDE without its physical keyboard attached. It is not even possible to deliver a presentation from a projector attached tablet, since you do not have ESC to exit full screen. Other DEs have OSKs that seem to be in better shape for these tasks. 2. Maliit does not make clear its goals: does it want to remain a phone-like keyboard or does it want to support terminal layouts? This is fundamental to know, because if Maliit is unwilling to support "terminal" layouts, then either: (i) another solution is needed; or (ii) each individual application will need to provide its own keyboard overlay with the keys it needs. This is what applications designed for mobile phones regularly do. For instance Termux adds a bar over the Android alphanumeric keyboard and emacs is going to do the same. I do not think that this approach is the best one for devices where you could have a proper "terminal" OSK, since it leads to a wild inconsistency among the different applications, but it would still be better than nothing. 3. Maliit documentation is missing or very much out of date. If you go to https://maliit.github.io/documentation/ most links are missing or point to information that is explicitly declared as old. So even if the Maliit framework could enable developing a terminal layout, the *how* is going to remain totally unknown to most. Point 3 is probably where NEON could help most, by packaging the pieces of documentation that are available and still relevant. In perspective, KDE should probably have its own, internally developed OSK, being this a key functionality of the desktop with today's emergence of many dual mode devices sitting midway between tablets and laptops. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are watching all bug changes.
