This is why if you're not using phones/mobile devices that Vision excels for touchscreens. The only issue you might have is a conflict of the OS virtual keyboard and the Vision virtual keyboard, but that's about it. In Linux, I've only done it a couple of times. The original time was I believe using Ubuntu 18.04, but the second time with Ubuntu 22.04 (if I recall) I had issues with the OSK not working consistently, so we had to use PopOS 22.04 instead to get it to work reliably. Those 2 times were for the same customer who had a standalone skid with Edge that they wanted to access using their phone or tablet, so we had to use Perspective (otherwise it would have gotten Vision installed).
The only way I have gotten the OSK to work with Perspective when it comes to touch screen HMIs is either:
- Utilize Ubuntu 20.04 while in Chrome
- Run Windows IOT 10 or 11
Each have their drawbacks when it comes to updates, support, etc. depending on what you are more familiar with. Windows OSK works pretty much out of the box from the ones I have set up but it is Windows and sometimes that is a pain to support.
Linux on the other hand is great. I believe I have seen more success in using PopOS like Michael mentioned. The issues i ran into with Ubuntu was locking the user out of the desktop, and being able to reliably call the OSK when using the workstation. If I ran it in Chrome or Firefox as kiosk mode it worked fine. But I was still fighting swipe gestures and some other buggy stuff on a Linux level so occasionally the user could exit the application.
For the time being we will most likely only deploy Perspective HMI applications on Windows when it is requested and can meet the needs of the project. Otherwise we will probably start deploying Vision HMIs as @michael.flagler mentioned it excels in this area and @pturmel would also recommend and has given his thoughts on this matter all over this forum(worth reading through those).
As much as I like the look and feel of Perspective and prefer to develop in it, I would rather be putting out reliable systems. Not being able to have a reliable way of utilizing an OSK in Perspective just adds another headache that takes up a lot of time trying to make work, and work right.
Long post, but I have been down this rabbit hole for about a year now, as I am sure others have, but just waned to give my experience with the matter.
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Full how to with Linux.