QtFreeVirtualKeyboard

A QML based on screen virtual keyboard for embedded QML applications.

As soon as you implement your first QML application for an embedded touchscreen device, you will notice, that the open source version of Qt lacks a virtual on screen keyboard. I'm an experienced QT developer, but I'm a complete newbie when it comes to QML programming. I'm a great fan of the Beaglebone Black embedded Linux device and I just ordered a capacitive touchscreen device for my bone. I started learning QML to create an example application for my Beaglebone. I quickly noticed that an important essential piece was missing for entering text and values: a virtual on screen keyboard for embedded QML applications - that means for applications without X11 or Wayland.

There is a nice solution for Qt Enterprise version: Qt Virtual Keyboard. This page also comes with a nice technical guide that shows how they implemented the virtual keyboard. They implemented QPlatformInputContextPlugin and QPlatformInputContext interfaces. I googled a little bit to find a similar open source solution and found the fantastic blog post from Tomasz Olszak. He did a virtual keyboard mockup for Qt applications on systems with a window manager (Windows or Linux Desktop).