Hello,


On Wed, 2015-12-02 at 11:01 +0000, marmuta wrote:
> Thanks for the links, Ritesh. I wasn't aware of the shell extensions.
> I'd love to try them, but have no idea how to get them installed (on
> Ubuntu 15.10). The website silently fails to download. Any idea were
> the source is located?
> This could potentially close bug #1306220.
> 

Those are GNOME Shell Extensions. Since you are on Ubuntu (Unity), it
may not work.

I have extracted the source and shared it at the following link:

https://github.com/rickysarraf/onboard-extension


> > I think the logic for autoshow of the keyoard should be :
> > 
> > if (soft-keyboard-enabled && textInputField is active):
> > show onboard.
> This is how it's already supposed to work in most desktop
> environments. The "if (soft-keyboard-enabled" part is only disabled
> in GNOME shell and GNOME classic because Onboard would clash with the
> built-in keyboard there. If you want Onboard to show up when GNOME's
> "Screen Keyboard" setting is turned on, then remove  "--not-show-
> in=GNOME,GNOME-Classic:GNOME" from /etc/xdg/autostart/onboard-
> autostart.desktop.
> For the second part "&& textInputField is active)" there is Onboard's
> Preferences->General->Auto show... .
> 

Yeah!! I guess GNOME Upstream still thinks they do the best designs.
And that their design decisions are always correct. Perhaps a very good
reason, why Linux still sucks as a generic desktop product.

I already filed a bug with GNOME Upstream expressing my concern of them
being technically very monolithic.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=741351

I am hopeful things might change. Not sure when though.

> > On many modern devices now (like the Yogas), they come with sensors
> > to detect orientation. 
> > And then tools like iio-proxy-daemon, can tap on those signals and
> > do certain tasks
> There is some support for screen rotation, see bug #911821. We had it
> mostly working on the Nexus7 before. What Onboard detects is the
> change in screen resolution. Basically you (or the iio-proxy-daemon
> package, if it existed) would need to take care of the actual screen
> rotation (e.g. by running xrandr) and Onboard should already notice
> and do the right thing. Only drawback I remember is that the
> transition isn't very pretty. Maybe just try it, and let us know how
> it goes.
> 

I already am maintaining iio-sensor-proxy for Debian. So you may soon
see it on Ubuntu, as an obvious effect.

https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/iio-sensor-proxy.html

And yes, the current dependency is on xrandr extensions. For GNOME (+
Lenovo Yoga 2 13, what I use), this already works. But the iio-sensor-
proxy daemon only taps sensor data and accordingly informs the state
over dbus. Interested parties (in this case, Mutter Window Manager) act
on those events, and thus you see screen orientation change when you
tilt the Lenovo Yoga. FY: You'll need GNOME 3.18 to try this out.


My immediate goal is to see if I can get onboard a possible 1st class
replacement for Caribou. And onboard as also a 1st class soft keyboard
for generic Desktop Environments.

If you get the GNOME SHell Extension improvements into onboard upstream
itself, it'd definitely help in that direction.


-- 
Ritesh Raj Sarraf
RESEARCHUT - http://www.researchut.com
"Necessity is the mother of invention."