On Screen Keyboard (PC and Console) best practices

Question

I'm looking at implementing text input for my game. Currently it's a PC, Mac and Linux (Steam) game, but we want to fully support controller input as well (Big Picture Mode, as well as porting to consoles in the future).

There are a number of occurrences where we'll want users to input text for names (utilizing Steam Workshop with in game designs primarily).

I'm wondering if there's a best practice for on screen keyboards for this, or if it's something most people program out themselves with their UI? It's a frustrating thing to search for (using Keyboard as a key word doesn't really bring anything useful up, and the things you do find are primarily for mobile).

It seems like most systems have a built in Keyboard, so I'd hope to just use those. But I'm fairly uncertain the best way to utilize them (and as stated earlier, it's quite difficult to search for).

Thanks in advance for any help/tips, it's greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

First you need to create VirtualKeyboard.cs script

 using UnityEngine;
 using System;
 using System.Collections;
 using System.Diagnostics;
 using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
 
 public class VirtualKeyboard
 {
     [DllImport("user32")]
     static extern IntPtr FindWindow(String sClassName, String sAppName);
 
     [DllImport("user32")]
     static extern bool PostMessage(IntPtr hWnd, uint Msg, int wParam, int lParam);
 
     private static Process _onScreenKeyboardProcess = null;
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Show the touch keyboard (tabtip.exe).
     /// </summary>
     public void ShowTouchKeyboard()
     {
         ExternalCall("C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\ink\\tabtip.exe", null, false);
         //ExternalCall("TABTIP", null, false);
     }
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Hide the touch keyboard (tabtip.exe).
     /// </summary>
     public void HideTouchKeyboard()
     {
         uint WM_SYSCOMMAND = 274;
         int SC_CLOSE = 61536;
         IntPtr ptr = FindWindow("IPTip_Main_Window", null);
         PostMessage(ptr, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_CLOSE, 0);
     }
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Show the on screen keyboard (osk.exe).
     /// </summary>
     public void ShowOnScreenKeyboard()
     {
         //ExternalCall("C:\\Windows\\system32\\osk.exe", null, false);
 
         if (_onScreenKeyboardProcess == null || _onScreenKeyboardProcess.HasExited)
             _onScreenKeyboardProcess = ExternalCall("OSK", null, false);
     }
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Hide the on screen keyboard (osk.exe).
     /// </summary>
     public void HideOnScreenKeyboard()
     {
         if (_onScreenKeyboardProcess != null && !_onScreenKeyboardProcess.HasExited)
             _onScreenKeyboardProcess.Kill();
     }
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Set size and location of the OSK.exe keyboard, via registry changes.  Messy, but only known method.
     /// </summary>
     /// <param name='rect'>
     /// Rect.
     /// </param>
     public void RepositionOnScreenKeyboard(Rect rect)
     {
         ExternalCall("REG", @"ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Osk /v WindowLeft /t REG_DWORD /d " + (int)rect.x + " /f", true);
         ExternalCall("REG", @"ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Osk /v WindowTop /t REG_DWORD /d " + (int)rect.y + " /f", true);
         ExternalCall("REG", @"ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Osk /v WindowWidth /t REG_DWORD /d " + (int)rect.width + " /f", true);
         ExternalCall("REG", @"ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Osk /v WindowHeight /t REG_DWORD /d " + (int)rect.height + " /f", true);
     }
 
     private static Process ExternalCall(string filename, string arguments, bool hideWindow)
     {
         ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
         startInfo.FileName = filename;
         startInfo.Arguments = arguments;
 
         // if just command, we don't want to see the console displayed
         if (hideWindow)
         {
             startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
             startInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
             startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
             startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
         }
 
         Process process = new Process();
         process.StartInfo = startInfo;
         process.Start();
 
         return process;
     }
 }

then call from your script like below

 VirtualKeyboard vk = new VirtualKeyboard();
 
 public void OpenKeyboard()
 {
         {       
             vk.ShowTouchKeyboard();
         }
 }
 
 public void CloseKeyboard()
 {
         {       
             vk.HideTouchKeyboard();
         }
 }

Answer 2

Answer by alex17pat · Sep 05, 2017 at 11:02 AM

One of the Best On Screen Virtual Keyboards which I know are

Free Virtual Keyboard
On-Screen Keyboard Portable
Comfort On-Screen Keyboard Lite
Microsoft On-Screen Keyboard
Click-N-Type

source:- http://merabheja.com/free-on-screen-virtual-keyboards/

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Answer 3

Answer by kulger · Oct 21, 2016 at 12:16 PM

hello, i tried it's working only under windows 8.

am stucked with window 10 , keyboared never show , even when you click on Tabtip.exe

but when you call it from execute panel "osk" it 's working , am confused .. and i need some help with windows 10,

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Vagonn · Oct 21, 2016 at 05:46 PM 0

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But, I tested this only with Windows 10 and it's worked

JerryStreith Vagonn · Mar 30, 2017 at 04:37 PM 0

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yes, on windows 10 keyboard never show, only worked for win8

sergeMensah Vagonn · Apr 22, 2017 at 02:40 PM 0

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hello @vagonn , please can you show me the steps , i had tried but i didn't get any result ,i am confuse please i need some help

Drakonno Vagonn · Jul 04, 2017 at 03:19 PM 0

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I know it is a late response, but @Vagonn shared here a really nice script.

The reason, that someone could have problems with showing the keyboard is that:

vk.ShowTouch$$anonymous$$eyboard();

Touch $$anonymous$$eyboard will work, and show, only on devices with touch input enabled. If You want to show it on standard windows, then You have to call:

Show/Hide OnScreen$$anonymous$$eyboard

methods from the script, for example:

vk.ShowOnScreen$$anonymous$$eyboard();,

and if is not positioned not, set it's rect using:

RepositionOnScreen$$anonymous$$eyboard(Rect rect) ,

with example:

vk.RepositionOnScreen$$anonymous$$eyboard(new Rect(0, 0, 500, 200)

sergeMensah Drakonno · Jul 12, 2017 at 11:41 PM 0

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hi @Drakonno i followed your steps but still nothing is showing i really don't know why it did not work maybe the version of the unity 5.6 i am using please can you show me your step thanks in advance for your help

On Screen Keyboard (PC and Console) best practices

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