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Split from this thread.
The new virtual keyboard is a mess. I never really thought about it in W8.1; would just start typing. In W10, I hate it.
And it's not just a matter of getting used to something new.
You can make the keyboard pop up. There is a setting under Devices. In the search window, search for TYPING. The top line looks like a heading, but it is really a choice. It just says TYPING SETTINGS. Choose it.
Near the bottom of the options there is one that allows, "Automatically show the touch keyboard in windowed apps..."
Keep in mind that the behavior is different whether you are in TABLET mode or not. (Which is yet ANOTHER annoying feature designed to help)
Finally, perhaps the biggest problem is that the keyboard does not clip into the screen, but instead stays on top. This means it will effectively cover many of the text fields when you are trying to type. This is absolutely UNBELIEVABLE! It is hard to understand how anyone could make this on purpose. It is highly unusable.
And of course they didn't seem to anticipate that the keys on the far right of the keyboard will be pressed from time to time and are in the same area as the touch zone of the swipe from right. so often as I am typing the ACTION CENTER will appear. Grrrrr....
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Clear as mud... so now we have TK, OSK, and now TIP? ;-o
I just touch on a text input field and a keyboard appears. Not sure if it's TK, OSK, TIP, or EIEIO.
Of course, appreciate you sticking with the thread. Thanks.
Well you can basically forget TIP since its been gone since Win 7.
Even after all those abbreviations we also have to deal with the confusion between docking a window and docking an entire tablet (physical dock). It makes searching for any info on this topic really hard to find.
Grateful for the response, but I'm on acronym overload.
What is the difference between TK and OSK?
Statements like "I could not use the TK but had to use the OSK" leave me head-scratching... not sure what you mean.
I want to confirm what you mean by "undocking and docking"? You mean toggling between locking it at the bottom, and allowing the keyboard to move? (I imagine that is what you mean, but I'm just trying to make sure we're talking about the same thing.) If so, then YES, have have done that, with no change. DOCKED will oftentimes cover the input area; UNDOCKED will allow me to move the keyboard, and then awkwardly enter the text.
As far as moving to EDGE... well... I had thought it might be a Chrome problem, so I did try Edge. And I didn't see any difference with this particular problem. I am sticking with Chrome for now because I've read about significant performance problems with Edge, and more importantly, I could not find out how to turn off the autoplay of videos in Edge (I'm sure there is a way, and people can search for answers elsewhere. Let's not distract from the topic of this discussion! :-)
I have noticed that there are a FEW instances where the keyboard will sorta behave properly. If you use the SEARCH icon (not sure what the proper term for that is...), things will behave as you'd intuitively expect. You touch the icon, and it opens a text input box. When you touch inside the box, the keyboard appears. It is docked at the bottom of the screen. The text input box is then moved ABOVE the keyboard. All automatically. THIS is how ALL things should work... it's how it works on every other mobile touch-based device.
The problem is that it does not behave like this in Chrome or Edge. Not in Skype (which is particularly annoying!). Not in Outlook. Not in Word. I haven't done extensive testing to create a list, but the few I've listed here are my most frequently used programs and it should be enough to demonstrate there is a real problem.
Is there an input field involved with your typing or not? If there is that is purpose of the Dock. It causes the input area to be shown above the keyboard. Use the Run... dialog to see this.
Alternatively, the TK is probably not the right tool. You should be using the OSK if you don't have an input field associated with your keying. You can move it by dragging too but also notice the Move buttons. They seem to make useful choices. Unfortunately we still can not use both the TK and the OSK at the same time, so don't bother trying to start the TK while the OSK is open or even minimized.
The only really strange decision that I see is that the TK always opens in Handwriting mode. I guess that was just to try to keep it small and try to avoid the complaints about how big the TK is. But there they were probably trying to make it work for Touch instead of only for Pen. If you are only using Pen (e.g. a real stylus) you can still use the OSK and resize it down to something like the original Tablet PC TIP. Heh. The keyboard and the navigation pad size differently? Then I would like to make the Nav pad smaller still. Oh. It looks like you need to turn off the extra options, resize the keyboard and then turn them on again; otherwise the sizing is disproportional. YMMV. Wow. My super small OSK is even saved as a preference when I close it. So, if I had misplaced my pen I could even turn on the Magnifier and use my new mini OSK with Touch then. Thanks for making me find this!
FYI
Robert Aldwinckle
Well, moving it allows you to type. so i do it because there is really no choice.
But it is awkward and uncomfortable. And quite frankly stupid! What on earth were they thinking? I cannot think of ANY touch device that behaves this way. Not iOS, not android, not even my Windows phone.
They have really taken a huge leap backwards.
Appreciate the suggestion. but this needs a fix, not a workaround.
You can change the keyboard to be movable to another position on the screen. Does this help?
