Virtual Keyboard on Login Screen

[mcarlton00]

Has anybody managed to get an onscreen keyboard to appear on the login screen when using Raspbian Wheezy? I'm working to make a kiosk for several users and I'd like to limit use by user accounts and passwords, but I haven't been able to get it working yet.

I've installed both Florence and Matchbox-Keyboard and they both work fine once a user is logged in.

I've tried editing /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf as suggested with most linux distros and added in the "keyboard=" option under greeter, but nothing appears to be changing on the login screen.

Any suggestions are appreciated

[unauthorized_user]

I've tried editing /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf as suggested with most linux distros and added in the "keyboard=" option under greeter, but nothing appears to be changing on the login screen.

So, you press F3 and nothing happens? Post this file here:

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/var/log/lightdm/x-*-greeter.log

Greeter has builtin support for "onboard" keyboard. What about it? Usually greeter works much better with it.

[mcarlton00]

Correct, F3 does nothing. In addition, there isn't a keyboard option in the accessibility menu.

/var/log/lightdm/x-0-greeter.log

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** (lightdm-gtk-greeter:2324): WARNING **: Error retrieving accessibility bus address: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.a11y.Bus was not provided by any .service files

To my knowledge, Onboard isn't available on the Pi. It's not in the Raspbian repositories, at least.

For reference, here is /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf

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#
# background = Background file to use, either an image path or a color (e.g. #772953)
# show-language-selector (true or false)
# theme-name = GTK+ theme to use
# font-name = Font to use
# xft-antialias = Whether to antialias Xft fonts (true or false)
# xft-dpi = Resolution for Xft in dots per inch (e.g. 96)
# xft-hintstyle = What degree of hinting to use (hintnone, hintslight, hintmedium, or hintfull)
# xft-rgba = Type of subpixel antialiasing (none, rgb, bgr, vrgb or vbgr)
#
[greeter]
background=#ffffff
#show-language-selector=false
theme-name=Adwaita
#font-name=
xft-antialias=true
#xft-dpi=
xft-hintstyle=hintfull
xft-rgba=rgb
indicators=~language;~a11y;~session:~power
keyboard=florence

[jpezz]

Works like a charm. I use xdm so:

For Touchscreen keyboard (works with mouse). As root (sudo bash)

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apt-get install -y xvkbd

Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup to add the line to start virtual keyboard program before login

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export HOME=/root # If that's root's home directory
/usr/X11/bin/xvkbd -xdm -compact -geometry 800x400+20+600 &

Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xstartup to add the line to stop virtual keyboard program after login

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/usr/bin/pkill xvkbd &

[mcarlton00]

you are amazing, thank you so much. you just saved me so much time.

One small tweak, calling the full path

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/usr/X11/bin/xvkbd -xdm -compact -geometry 800x400+20+600 &

didn't work, but just doing

xvkbd -xdm -compact -geometry 800x400+20+600 &

did. Not sure why, but it's working so I'm not going to fight it.

Thanks again

[dg_ashby]

I've tried getting both Florence and matchbox-keyboard working with lightdm and the official 7" display. I've edited /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and modified and added the following:

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show-indicators=~language;~a11y;~session;~power                                                                                                                                             
keyboard=florence

This has the expected result, when lightdm starts up the Accessibility menu is present and the third option for the On Board Keyboard is present. When this option is selected the Florence keyboard appears.

Initially as soon as any key on the keyboard was pressed the keyboard would disappear. This issue was resolved via a different thread that suggested installing at-spi2-core using apt-get install.

After installing at-spi2-core the keyboard remains on screen and any key presses result in the key colour changing to blue while pressed however the character of the pressed key is not appearing in the username field even though it has focus.

Once logged in (using a wireless keyboard), Florence runs fine and key presses do generate characters, at least in a standard terminal window.

I've found a lot of posts from people having problems with virtual keyboards on Linux in general, it seems to be a particularly fragile area.

I'm running an up to date version of Raspbian with lightdm 1.10.3-3 and lightdm-gtk-greeter 1.8.5-2 on a Pi 3 but have seen the same problem on a Pi 2.

Has anyone had similar experiences and managed to find a solution?

[khooke]

I found this thread as I'm looking to set up an onscreen keyboard with the 7" screen and a Pi3. I followed the same steps as the last post in this thread but have exactly the same issue. Keyboard shows onscreen, but on first key press it disappears and nothing appears in the username or password fields.

Has anyone worked out a foolproof approach to getting an onscreen keyboard working yet? Do some work better than others?

[khooke]

I think this is the other thread db_ashby was referring to, I'll try this out later today:
viewtopic.php?f=108&t=123189

[Anton Meier]

Try this in /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf:

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show-indicators=~language;~a11y;~session;~power
keyboard=florence --focus

With the parameter --focus it should react as expected.

As mentioned before the package 'at-spi2-core' is necessary, too.

Greetings