Layout, Size, and Placement

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

Layout, Size, and Placement

The on-screen keyboard has three choices that suit it to your screen and to how you point at it. All three are set in the preferences panel; this card explains what they mean. See Setting Preferences for where each control sits.

Keyboard Layout

Two things are called "layout" here and they are worth keeping apart.

The BOARD is the shape: Model M Classic Keyboard, CyOSK Compact, On Board or Soft Micro. It decides which key groups exist. See Overview of the On-Screen Keyboard.

The LAYOUT proper is which key sits where, and it is a file. The stock layout is US QWERTY, named for the first six letters along its top row, in the ANSI form: a wide Enter with the backslash above it. The ISO form has the tall L-shaped Enter and puts backslash to the left of Z. Named layouts live as files under the program's share directory, and one can be named directly on the command line.

Size

The keyboard scales from 25 percent to 400 percent, with 100 percent as home. A larger board is easier to hit on a touch screen; a smaller one keeps more of your work in view. The value on the Layout page is the STARTUP size; once the keyboard is up you can also resize it by dragging a corner, which keeps the proportions unless you have allowed distortion. See Typing With the Keyboard.

Where It Appears

When FindIt runs, from the wheel gesture or from the show key, the keyboard moves to a chosen spot: one of the four corners of the screen, or dead center. Pick the spot that keeps the keyboard clear of what you are typing into. FindIt can also be switched off entirely, in which case the keyboard stays where you last left it.

The corner is remembered even while FindIt is off, so turning FindIt back on restores the spot you had chosen.

See Bringing Up the Keyboard for the gesture itself, and Setting Preferences for the control.