Screen keyboard at login and lock screens?

[compilebunny]

I am interested in running Lubuntu 24.04 on a tablet-like device.

matchbox-keyboard works well as a screen keyboard, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to make it appear at the login screen and lock screen.

I can’t be the first person to do this. Does anyone know how such a thing would work?

[compilebunny]

Note: some other functional screen keyboard would be fine as well. Note that the ever-famous “onboard” does not work with Python 3.12 and the authors have not generated a new release in a decade.

[humpty]

sudo aptitude install qtvirtualkeyboard-plugin

Add this to /etc/sddm.conf under [General]

[General]
InputMethod=qtvirtualkeyboard

logout
login

In addition, for other QT apps eg. featherpad, this was covered by wxl in this post, but I’ll repeat here;

(Preferences > LXQt Settings > Session Settings > Environment > add)
Variable Name: QT_IM_MODULE
Value : qtvirtualkeyboard

but not all apps work with it. e.g it never works for qTerminal. And it doesn’t work for non-QT apps.

It’s a pity, since the qt virtualkeyboard could easily be the thing that replaces onboard for wide tablet adoption. This just about sums it up, (and that was 6 years ago).

[compilebunny]

Thank you.

This works for the login screen. Although qtvirtualkeyboard does not work for all programs, matchbox-keyboard can be used in its place once the user is logged in.

Now, only the lockscreen is missing. Is there a method for enabling a screen keyboard on the xscreensaver lock screen?

[compilebunny]

It looks like xfce4-screensaver, though inferior security-wise to xscreensaver, has a screen keyboard. The question is now how to enable xfce4-screensaver in lubuntu/lxqt.