The Indicator Strip

Documentation / Contents - On-Screen Keyboard

• Overview of the On-Screen Keyboard
  • The Four Boards
  • One Keyboard Per Screen
• Bringing Up the Keyboard
  • The Show Key
  • The FindIt Gesture
  • The Taskbar Button and the Systray Icon
  • Putting It Away
• Typing With the Keyboard
  • Shift and Other Modifiers
  • Why Your Own Keyboard Still Works
  • Moving and Resizing the Board
• The Face Menu
• The Indicator Strip
• The Power Keys
• Word and Phrase Suggestions
• Layout, Size, and Placement
  • Keyboard Layout
  • Size
  • Where It Appears
• Setting Preferences
  • The Layout Page
  • The Appearance Page
  • The Behavior Page
  • The Session Page
  • The Typing Page
  • Defaults and Close
• Making the Keyboard Easier to Use
  • High-Contrast Colors
  • Hover to Press
  • A Bigger Board
• Keys and Shortcuts
• Where the Settings Live
• Copyright Information

The Indicator Strip

Three indicators sit in the gap in the keyboard chassis, above the navigation cluster. Each is a small jewel with a word under it. They never sit on top of a key, so nothing they show costs you a key to press.

Cap    Caps Lock is on
Num    Num Lock is on
Sml    The compact board is in use

Cap and Num

These follow the real lock state of the X server, not a private copy of it. Turn Caps Lock on with your physical keyboard and the Cap jewel lights, the same as it would on a keyboard with real lamps. That makes the strip useful even when you are not clicking the board at all: it is a lock readout for any keyboard on the machine.

Sml

Sml reports that the compact board is showing rather than the full one. Clicking it switches between the full board and the compact board, which is the quickest way to give a crowded screen its space back without opening preferences. The setting it changes is the same one the Layout page sets; see Setting Preferences.

Sml toggles full against compact only. The On Board and Soft Micro shapes are chosen from preferences.

When the Strip Is Not There

The strip needs a gap in the chassis to live in. The smaller boards do not always have one, in which case the indicators are simply not drawn. Nothing is lost; the lock state is still the X server's, and every other keyboard and application sees it.

See The Power Keys for the other strip, the one that drives desks and windows.