Xvkbd (1) Linux Manual Page

NAME

xvkbd – virtual keyboard for X window system

DESCRIPTION

xvkbd is a virtual (graphical) keyboard program for X Window System which provides a facility to enter characters onto other clients (software) by clicking on a keyboard displayed on the screen. This may be used for systems without a hardware keyboard such as kiosk terminals or handheld devices. This program also has a facility to send characters specified as the command line option to another client.

The standard keyboard layout is based on the traditional US layout, but some other keyboard layout (see "Screenshot") are also supported. The default window size may be too large for systems with small screen, but it can be configured to use smaller space (220×90 pixels, for example). For details, see also "Screenshot" and "How to Customize xvkbd" below, and resouce files in the distribution.

xvkbd version 2.1 and later support word completion and xvkbd version 4.0 and later will now learns the used words for word completion , which may make it easier to enter long words with xvkbd.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When invoking xvkbd from display managers such as XDM, GDM, etc., always use xvkbd with -secure option or you will have serious security risk.

Environment

xvkbd will work on X11R5 or X11R6. It is tested on redhat Linux and Solaris, and it will work also on most UNIX-like systems.

This program uses Xaw (use of Xaw3d is recommended) and no special library is required.

Operation

Input Keys

When xvkbd is started, the image of a keyboard will be displayed on the screen. Clicking any key on the xvkbd window will send the character to the focused window as if the key had been actually typed with the hardware keyboard.

If you want to input upper-case alphabets or other characters on the upper position on the keyboard, you should click the key after selecting Shift by clicking it, or click the key with mouse button 3 (maybe right button) or mouse button 4. In the similar manner, if you want to input Controled characters, you should click the key after clicking Control, or click the key with mouse button 2 (maybe middle button). Alt and Meta can be used in the similar manner with Control, but there are no shortcuts with mouse buttons.

“Quick Modifiers”

xvkbd 2.5 and later support another way to input characters with modifiers such as Shift, Control, AltGr, etc., which may be useful especially for machines with touch panels such as PDAs – we would call it "Quick Modifiers".

Quick Modifiers can be enabled/disabled by the “Enable "Quick Modifiers?” entry on the property panel. If Quick Modifiers is enabled, it will be activated by pressing a key on the xvkbd window, move the pointer outside of the key, and then release the mouse button or equivalent.

The direction of the pointer motion will select the modifier:

  up        - Shift
  right     - AltGr
  right-up  - Shift AltGr
  left      - Control
  left-up   - Shift Control
  down      - Meta
  left-down - Alt

Setting Input Focus

If you are using a window manager and clients where you can set input focus by clicking mouse button on the window (and you don’t have to keep pointer in the window after that), you can simply set input focus in the normal way and then click keys on the xvkbd window – the character will be sent to the selected position.

If you are using a window manager or clients where you must keep the pointer in the input field to input from the keyboard, or if the input focus is switched to the xvkbd window when you clicked on the key on the xvkbd window, you must make xvkbd to set input focus explicitly by clicking the Focus button on the xvkbd window and then click on the input field. This input focus can be cleared by clicking Focus button with mouse button 3, or simply clicking Focus button twice.

Word Completion

Choosing “Word Completion…” in the main menu will popup the Word Completion panel.

When you entered characters by clicked keys on the xvkbd window as usual while the Word Completion panel open, words started with the characters will be listed in the panel, and you can enter the remaining characters of the selected word by clicking one of the words in the list.

  When “Integrate Completion Panel?” on the property panel is set on,
  completion panel will be displayed on the main window when required.
  .PP The dictionary (list of words) file is /usr/share/xvkbd/words.english by default, but it can be changed with Static Dictionary on the property panel.

In addition, xvkbd records the used words and those scores in $HOME/.xvkbd.words.

Main Menu

Pressing the “xvkbd” logo on the main keyboard (placed near left-bottom corner in the default configuration) will popup the main menu.

The menu contains following items:

About…: Show short description of this program.
Manual…: Launch manual page reader.
Keypad…: Open the Keypad panel.
Sun Function Keys…: Open the Sun Function Keys panel.
Dead Keys…: Open the Dead Keys panel which can be used to enter Latin characters with accent symbol in double stroke.
Word Completion…: Open the Word Completion panel.

Change Keyboard Layout…: Open a popup window to change the keyboard layout. In the default configuration, Default (US), Belgian, Danish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese (JIS-X-6002), Japanese (JIS-X-6004), Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss/German, United Kingdom and Latin-1 are available.
Edit Function Keys…: Open a popup window to edit string assigned to function keys. See also "Assigning Text to Function Keys".
Show Keypad?: Toggle show/hide of the keypad on the main window.
Show Function Keys?: Toggle show/hide of the function keys on the main window.
Property…: Popup the Property panel.
Connect to Remote Display…: Open a panel to specify the name of a remote display (in the meaning of the X Window System) to connect, so that following key events will be sent to windows on the remote display.
Revert to Local Display: Disconnect from the remote display so that following key events will be sent to windows on the local display.

Property Panel

Enable "Quick Modifiers"?: Toggle enable/disable of the Quick Modifiers feature.
Lock Shift?: Toggle locking/momentary of Shift keys.
Lock AltGr?: Toggle locking/momentary of AltGr key.
Lock Control, Alt and Meta?: Toggle locking/momentary of Control, Alt and Meta keys.
Always on Top?: If this entry is set ON, xvkbd attempts to keep the xvkbd window always on the top of the display (i.e. not to be hidden by other windows). This feature is experimental, and care should be taken as this feature can cause problem in some situations.
Behave as Toolbar Window?: xvkbd attempts to be a toolbar window when it is used with some kind of window managers such as Matchbox window manager.
Use XTEST Extension?: XTEST extension will be used if this entry is checked. If this entry is set inactive, the X server does not support XTEST extension.
Jump Pointer?: If this entry is set ON, xvkbd will temporary jump the pointer to the focused window, if XTEST extension is to be used to simulate keyboard events.
Key-Click Sound: Set on/off and duration of key-click sound.
Automatic Click: Set on/off of the automatic click feature and the delay before automatic click is activated. If this feature is set, xvkbd will work as if left mouse button is clicked when mouse pointer is moved on a button and stays long enough. You may want to set Jump Pointer? to OFF to avoid auto-repeating.
Completion:
Static Dictionary:   Set the filename to be used for word completion.
    This setting take precedence over the `xvkbd.dictFile‘ resource
    and the -dict option.
    Default: /usr/share/xvkbd/words.english
Dynamic Dictionary Weight:       This parameter controls "learning" of recently used words.
    When this value is set 0, xvkbd will not learn used words.
    With higher value setting, xvkbd will quickly
    learn the used words and effectively ignores frequency information
    in the Static Dictionary.
    Default: 1.
Insert Blank after Completion?":       If this button is set on,
    xvkbd will insert blank (‘ ‘) automatically after word completion
    if the next character is not blank nor punctuations.
Integrate Completion Panel?":       If this button is set on,
    word completion panel will be inegrated at top of the main window
    and will be activated when required.

Options

xvkbd accept following command line options, in addition to general options such as `-display‘.

-version

Display version information and exit.

-xsendevent

Make xvkbd to use XSendEvent() to simulate keyboard events, as it was in xvkbd version 1.0. xvkbd version 1.1 and later will try to use XTEST extension instead in the default configuration. Because it is not unusual applications to ignore keyboard events generated with -xsendevent, you shouldn’t use -xsendevent option unless it is really required.

If XTEST extension is not supported by the X server, xvkbd will automatically switch to this mode.

Resource `xvkbd.xtest: false‘ has the same function.

-no-sync

Normally, xvkbd attempts to synchronize with the destinating client step by step. This can cause problem when the client (or the X server) responded too slow. In such situation, maybe this -no-sync can solve the problem.

Resource `xvkbd.noSync: true‘ has the same function.

-no-jump-pointer

Make xvkbd not to jump the pointer when sending events. In the default, xvkbd will temporary jump the pointer to the focused window, if input focus is set explicitly via Focus button, and XTEST extension is to be used to simulate keyboard events.

Resource `xvkbd.jumpPointer: false‘ has the same function.

-no-back-pointer

Make xvkbd not to jump the pointer back to the original position after events has been sent. Maybe this can be useful when using xvkbd to move the pointer position.

Resource `xvkbd.jumpPointerBack: false‘ has the same function.

-modal

Make labels on keys in the xvkbd window to be set independently for each of four shift states, not shifted, Shift, AltGr and Shift–AltGr. This is useful when you want to make the xvkbd window very small.

See also "Customizing Keyboard Layout" and resouce files in the distribution.

Resource `xvkbd.modalKeytop: true‘ has the same function.

-geometry [widthxheight][+xoff+yoff]

Set window geometry (size and position).

You can use form like -geometry 400×130 to specify the window size, -geometry +100+100 to specify the window position from left/top edge of the screen, and -geometry 400×130+100+100 to specify both the size and the position. You can specify position from right/bottom edge of the screen by using – instead of +, but please note that you must take account of size of the window border. (If you specify `-geometry -0-0‘, the window will not fit in the screen.)

This can be set by xvkbd.windowGeometry resource (note that it is not xvkbd.geometry), too.

-no-resize

Disable resize of the xvkbd window.

Resource `xvkbd.resizable: false‘ has the same function.

-no-repeat

Do not auto-repeat even if key is depressed long time.

If auto-repeat is enabled (this is the default), time before start auto-repeat can be set as `xvkbd*Repeater.initialDelay: 600‘, and period of repeat can be set as `xvkbd*Repeater.minimumDelay: 100‘ (unit of there parameters are milli-seconds).

Resource `xvkbd.autoRepeat: false‘ has the same function.

-no-functionkey

Do not display function keys.

Resource `xvkbd.functionkey: false‘ has the same function.

-no-keypad

Do not display keypad.

Resource `xvkbd.keypad: false‘ has the same function.

-compact

Do not display function keys nor keypad.

Resource `xvkbd.compact: true‘ has the same function.

-keypad

Display only keypad. This option will be ignored if `-no-keypad‘ or `-compact‘ is specified.

Resource `xvkbd.keypadOnly: true‘ has the same function.

-text string

Send the string to the focused window (see also `-window‘ option).

If this option is specified, xvkbd will not open its window and terminate soon after sending the string.

The string can contain:

–

– Return

–

– Tab

–

– Backspace

–

– Escape

–

\d – Delete

–

\S – Shift (modify the next character; please note that modify with “\S” will be ignored in many cases. For example, “a\Cb\ScD\CE” will be interpreted as a, Control-b, c, Shift-D, and Control-Shift-E.)

–

\C – Control (modify the next character)

–

\A – Alt (modify the next character)

–

\M – Meta (modify the next character)

–

\W – Super (modify the next character)
.IP " – " 6 \[keysym] – the keysym keysym (e.g., \[Left]), which will be processed in the similar matter with other general characters

–

\{keysym} – the keysym keysym (e.g., \{Left}), which will be processed in more primitive matter and can also be used for modofier keys such as Control_L, Meta_L, etc.; also, \{+keysym} and \{+keysym} will simulate press and release of the key, respectively

–

\Ddigit – delay digit * 100 ms

–

xvkbd (1) Linux Manual Page

NAME

DESCRIPTION

Environment

Operation

Input Keys

“Quick Modifiers”

Setting Input Focus

Word Completion

Main Menu

Property Panel

Options

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