Akademy/2025/Input BoF 1

Status

Aleix has some work matching input method to keyboard layout

Plasma Keyboard

• mostly works to be on par with maliit
• doesn't cover all the things we want to do
• 60% keyboard use case not covered (when you need a keysym not available)

Let's treat these as two unrelated problems:

• input method (cjk)
• emulate a physical keyboard

input

2018 GSOC:

• looked what input methods were available
• turned keyboard kcm to "input kcm"

• gnome supposedly have something like this (but ibus only)
• fcitx/ibus both have dbus APIs to list what's available
  • fxitc has some frontend/backend separation
  • so our KCM we can hook into that
  • eike will drop a link
• grant money available

Keyboard

Soft launch: Release.

Use cases:

You have an english keyboard, and you're typing korean / greek / whatever

(or you don't have a keyboard)

when you don't have a keyboard

• phone
• tablet
• using a terminal. would be a special case. Would have to be a mode you opt into.
• or make it an app problem?
  • aleix: best if apps do it
  • xaver: but some apps just won't
  • dorotac: my experience is that people just don't
  • aleix, it's important that we are simple by default
  • (rough consensus seems to be that we do it)
• the use case is very different. full layout with all the keys is about entering keys, not text.
• handwriting (panel needs to be different)

Access

• mobility issues. Need it to be massive
• screenreader of the keys as you go over them
• one handed mode
• controller like steamdeck
• users have learned to not not type passwords in korean because apps can be rubbish, so we need to be able to get to a point where we swap layout