Failed to call out the onscreen keyboard with a physical keyboard is plugged in

Question

Hi all,

I'm working on a app which used 'TextBox'.  I sometimes failed to call out the onscreen keyboard in such cases:

With a physical keyboard cover is plugged in, call out the onscreen keyboard(Swap from the right side and call out the system setting bar then call out the keyboard) and input some words into the 'TextBox', then rotate it and rotate back later. The onscreen keyboard will be dismissed automatically. After this, try to call out the on-screen keyboard again.

Actual Result:

  The onscreen keyboard could not be called out sometimes.

Without a physical keyboard, the issue could not be reproduced.  You can easily reproduce this with any app that contain a TextBox.

Such as demos from Microsoft :

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Touch-keyboard-sample-43532fda

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/XAML-text-editing-sample-fb0493ad

So, am just wondering whether this is a small bug of the system or it's the system design ? Thank you very much !

Regards.

Dong.

Answer 1

I cannot reproduce this.

Can you explain what exactly you mean by a physical keyboard cover? Is this specific to Surface?

The keyboard system in general doesn't care if a keyboard is present or not. It triggers based on the user's actions, not the system configuration. Typically the keyboard will show automatically if the user sets the focus by touch to a text control. The user doesn't normally need to bring out the keyboard from the settings pane, but the user can override the default view by showing or hiding the keyboard explicitly. This is all outside of the control of the app.

If you have general (non-programming) questions about using a Surface or Surface Pro you'll be better off asking in the Surface forums on http://answers.microsoft.com .

--Rob

Answer 2

I cannot reproduce this.

Can you explain what exactly you mean by a physical keyboard cover? Is this specific to Surface?

The keyboard system in general doesn't care if a keyboard is present or not. It triggers based on the user's actions, not the system configuration. Typically the keyboard will show automatically if the user sets the focus by touch to a text control. The user doesn't normally need to bring out the keyboard from the settings pane, but the user can override the default view by showing or hiding the keyboard explicitly. This is all outside of the control of the app.

If you have general (non-programming) questions about using a Surface or Surface Pro you'll be better off asking in the Surface forums on http://answers.microsoft.com .

--Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your replay.  The 'physical keyboard' , i mean the Surface keyboard cover. Please see my comments :

1. With the keyboard cover plugged in, the onscreen keyboard will not automatically pops up if you touch a editable item. It will only pops up automatically if there is no keyboard cover connected.

2. The issue could only be reproduced with keyboard cover plugged in and it will be easily reproduced. Could you do me a favour to have another try ? Thanks.

3. This is a programming problem, I used the 'TextBox' in my app, our QE has filed a bug about the case i descripted, I have to get the information about whether this is the system design or a small bug.

Thanks again. 

Answer 3

It looks likely that it is by design that the soft keyboard doesn't come up if the touch cover is attached, but I'd recommend checking with the folks in the Surface forums to confirm. I cannot reproduce that the keyboard doesn't come up when called explicitly.

Either way, your app doesn't have programmatic control over the keyboard. There won't be anything reasonable you can do from code to affect this. This is device behavior, not an application programming issue.

--Rob

Answer 4

It looks likely that it is by design that the soft keyboard doesn't come up if the touch cover is attached, but I'd recommend checking with the folks in the Surface forums to confirm. I cannot reproduce that the keyboard doesn't come up when called explicitly.

Either way, your app doesn't have programmatic control over the keyboard. There won't be anything reasonable you can do from code to affect this. This is device behavior, not an application programming issue.

--Rob

Thanks, Rob !