Introduction to the Onboard on-screen keyboard. Francesco Fumanti francesco.fumanti@gmx.net 2016

This work is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or any later version.

 Introduction

Onboard is an on-screen keyboard built for a wide range of situations where a hardware keyboard cannot be used. It aims to support Tablet users, mobility impaired users and Desktop users that have a need for on-screen input.

<gui>Onboard</gui> on-screen keyboard window Onboard using the Compact layout, the Nightshade theme, word suggestions and the hover click with the Swiss French system language.

Picture of the keyboard window of Onboard the Compact layout, the Nightshade theme, the typing assistance and the hover click.

Onboard has been designed with simplicity in mind and its basic features can be used out of the box. More advanced abilities can be enabled in preferences.

General features:

Onboard supports modifiermouse click combinations.

The window of the on-screen keyboard can be resized and placed anywhere on screen.

The keyboard can be docked at the bottom screen edge, ready to slide in on demand.

User-defined snippets of text can be inserted on click of a button.

Onboard offers several layouts with different numbers of keys. There is for example a layout with less, but bigger keys for tablets.

Several themes are available that control the shape and colours of the keys.

Onboard follows the keyboard language set for the system keyboard. If the user changes the keyboard language during his session, Onboard automatically adapts to the new language.

Onboard offers an option to make it appear when unlocking the screen.

Advanced features:

Onboard can be set to appear and disappear automatically when the focus is on an editable item.

Onboard's word suggestions support word prediction, spell-checking and auto-capitalization.

Advanced users can create custom layouts with xml and svg files.

Advanced users can define custom color schemes with xml files.

For distributions Onboard offers a configuration file to define default settings and branding.

Accessibility features:

Onboard can be used to turn a left click into a middle click, right click, double click or drag click.

Onboard can control the hover click ability provided by the mousetweaks software.

Onboard supports keyboard scanning, configurable for one to five physical switches.

Note that some features like auto-show and word suggestions need the GNOME Assistive Technology Framework to run. The first time these features are enabled, Onboard will ask for permission to activate it.