On-Screen Keyboard

eLux can show an on-screen keyboard so a device without a physical keyboard can still receive input. It’s available on the logon screen, the lock screen, and the desktop.

Before you start

The device image must contain the onboard on-screen keyboard package. Without it, the keyboard never appears, no matter how it’s configured.

Turning it on and off

A user can show or hide the keyboard at any time from Quick System Access → Accessibility. The toggle stays in sync with the keyboard’s actual state — for example, if the user closes the keyboard window directly, the toggle switches off too.

By default, this is a per-session choice only: the keyboard’s state resets the next time the device reboots.

Making it start automatically

To have the keyboard come up by itself after every reboot — at the login prompt, on the desktop, and on the lock screen — set the following in Scout → Advanced Configuration → File Entries:

File Section Key Value
/setup/terminal.ini VirtualKeyboard AutoStart true (starts automatically on every boot) / false or omitted (today’s behavior — off by default)

This is a policy the administrator sets centrally; there’s no per-device or per-user override on the device itself, and the on-screen toggle in Accessibility does not rewrite it. It’s off by default and available from eLux 7.2607.

Push it to a device or an OU, then reboot for it to take effect. Once set, hiding the keyboard for the current session (via Accessibility) doesn’t change this setting — the next reboot re-applies it, and the keyboard comes back if AutoStart=true.

Changing the layout and theme

Configure the keyboard’s appearance the same way, via Advanced Configuration → File Entries:

File Section Key Values
/setup/terminal.ini VirtualKeyboard Theme elux-dark / elux-light
/setup/terminal.ini VirtualKeyboard Layout Compact-Elux / Full Keyboard-Elux
On-Screen Keyboard