Virtual Keyboard does not appear.

[tinguin]

Virtual Keyboard does not appear.

I have set the setting for tablet-mode as mentioned in https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/wiki/Configuration:-Switch-Events, but no virtual keyboard appears when clicking into a text input field. In Gnome on the same system everything works. I'd be okay manually triggering to show the virtual keyboard, but it has to be able to be triggered from a touchscreen.

[...]
switch-events {
lid-close { spawn "notify-send" "The laptop lid is closed!"; }
lid-open { spawn "notify-send" "The laptop lid is open!"; }
tablet-mode-on { spawn "bash" "-c" "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled true"; }
tablet-mode-off { spawn "bash" "-c" "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.a11y.applications screen-keyboard-enabled false"; }
}
[...]

System Information

• Framework 12 Laptop

• niri version: 25.08 (01be0e6)

• Distro: Arch Linux

• GPU: Intel Raptor Lake

• CPU: Intel Raptor Lake

[Sempyos]

..uh I'm decently sure that would uh only work inside of gnome-shell..?

I am unsure, so I may be wrong

[miku4k]

Niri doesn't provide its own on-screen keyboard. The commands would toggle the keyboard provided by GNOME Shell, if you were running GNOME (that's why they work when you are). That snippet has been in the docs since switch binds were introduced; untested as it seems.

You can try using one of the following:

• https://github.com/System64fumo/sysboard
• https://github.com/jjsullivan5196/wvkbd
• https://github.com/WayfireWM/wf-osk

[Brisingr05]

I've tested wkeys and it works on my desktop with a touchscreen.

[bill88t]

Did some testing with my Framework 12 (it's a 2-in-1) and FydeTab Duo (ARM Tablet).

• The tablet-mode switch detection works.
• Tablet-mode detection is useless right now.
• The GNOME on-screen keyboard does not show up (and honestly that's a good thing, any% GNOME is a negative).
• The most effective (in terms of general usability) of the proposed solutions is wvkbd.
• wvkbd can be optimally made to be toggled using a waybar custom button.

This is how I've made Niri suitable for touch usage (dotshits here):

I may or may not create a fork specifically designed to integrate with Niri nicely.

[Sempyos]

@YaLTeR , can we convert this to a discussion, and would it be worth it to create a PR to add a note about this..?