Onboard not shown on login screen automatically on a device with no keyboard

You can start the onscreen keyboard, by using the options menu of unity-greeter.

Should we go so far as to start Onboard by default at the login screen and making it appear when the user tabs on the password input field? But how can we distinguish whether the user tabbed into the password field to place the cursor into it, or to open the onscreen keyboard.

Maybe, there should be an "open the onscreen keyboard item" just next to the password field for usability reasons.

Hello Francesco!
Thank you for reply.
I'm doing as you wrote in #2.

I think, that "open the onscreen keyboard item" (#3) is a good solution for new versions. Or change top-right menu item "Show onboard" to conditional "Show onboard" (when onboard is hidden) or "Hide onboard" (when it is shown). So user can point to password field, open onboard from top-right menu and tap the login button while using touchscreen.

An option closer to the password entry would perhaps help, but I wonder if the keyboard shouldn't be simply shown by default in "tablet mode", i.e. if there is no hardware keyboard attached.

If there is a reliable way to detect whether no hardware keyboard is attached, showing Onboard automatically deserves consideration.

By the way, I set the Onboard part of this bug to invalid because I think that a solution to this problem lies in the hands of unity-greeter and not in the hands of Onboard. If that was wrong, feel free to change that setting again.

OK, thank you. It seems that it is accessibility problem, so a11y tag may be also added.

I would rather qualify it as an usability problem.

> Onboard not shown on login screen automatically on a device with no keyboard.
This feature is not a whish - it is a very very important MUST.
As sonn as Onboard is installed it has to be available
to login when there is no real keyboard plugged in -
this is for touchscreens the most important function a virtual keyboard can have.

The news Ubuntu 13.04 is dedicated to tablets and touchscreens.
So how to log into a tablet without a virtual keyboard available?

A virtual keyboard that is not available to use at login is 99% useless -
and lets say it hard as it is:
A virtual keyboard which is not at hand for login
a soon as it is installed - this is pure nonsense!

Did you ever see an ipad with a real keyboard attached just for login?

Please, give us more detail about the touchscreen and the system is it running. Once running, Onboard uses at-spi2 to automatically appear when an editable item (like a password field) is selected. However, Onboard has first to be started, which is out of scope of Onboard itself. Please, marmuta, correct me if I am wrong.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Lenovo Miix 700, relatively stock Ubuntu 16.04 install.

Expected behaviors:
1. Some button or menu to manually call up an onboard keyboard. and/or
2. Onboard comes into view automatically, even before any taps or selections by user

Actual behavior:
1. No menu item that I can find in greeter to start the onboard
2. Onboard not automatically shown

It is possible that onboard is trying to be shown on my install, but is outside of the viewable area. I say this because greeter goes through an apparent resolution change in the first .5 second of being displayed, and there is a dark bar at the bottom of the screen. This may be a separate bug, in which case I will split it out to a new one. However, I suspect this may be affecting users with 2-in-1's with very hiDPI screens such as mine.