So we’ve got an Edge Panel project using the Vision client and the Ubuntu OS keyboard looked like it was working well for things (with touchscreen mode disabled) until we got to the password field where the keyboard wouldn’t pop up. So we enabled touchscreen mode, and now we can use the OS keyboard for username and then when we get to the password they have to enable touchscreen mode, type in the password, press enter, then disable touchscreen mode. If we have touchscreen mode enabled all the time, then the OS and Vision keyboards overlap and conflict with each other. Is there something we’re missing? Do we need to find a way to disable the OS keyboard and fully use the Vision keyboard, or can Vision force the use of the OS keyboard. We’re running 8.1.10 of Ignition so we’re on the latest version and Ubuntu has all of it’s updates.
So if anyone else encounters this, we finally got this figured out, but not without some trial and error.
We ended up having to install Block Caribou 36 from this link as a GNOME extension: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3222/block-caribou-36/
There is also a regular Block Caribou, but even though one comment says it works with GNOME 3.36, I think they accidently commented to the wrong extension as that version didn’t work for us. Once installed we did do a reboot to make sure it stuck, but then we were able to use the built-in Vision keyboard/keypad with touchscreen capabilities.
This extension essentially makes Ubuntu think there’s a keyboard physically connected from what I understand which then makes the OS keyboard stay hidden. Since it’s just an extension it can be toggled on and off after it’s installed if you ever need the OS keyboard in Ubuntu to do other tasks.
I think it could be possible to entirely use the OS keyboard but there seems to be a few bugs with Ignition/Vision that prevent it from working 100%. The password field wouldn’t pop up the keyboard, and any input fields would work the first time you touched them, but then no others on the screen would work unless we navigated away to another screen and back (not sure why, but it’s just what we noticed).
Another little bug we caught was that the blinking cursor would stay blinking in all of the fields we touched (even with the OS keyboard disabled) so at one time we had 5 blinking cursors on the screen.
Hope this helps anyone else running into the same issue.
It's amazing to me that this post doesn't have more responses and likes...seems like anyone with Ubuntu and a touchscreen HMI would end up here. This exact issue was frustrating the crap out of me...I will be deploying the fix tomorrow and will post with my feedback and experience.