Show & hiding the Windows 8 on screen keyboard from WPF

Question

I\'m writing a WPF application for a Windows 8 tablet. It\'s full windows 8 and not ARM/RT.

When the user enters a textbox I show the on screen keyboard using the fo

Answer 1

Maybe you can try the solution published on this blog: http://mheironimus.blogspot.nl/2015/05/adding-touch-keyboard-support-to-wpf.html

It contains some of the things you asked for (and more):

• Show and hide keyboard
• Move focus using FrameworkElement.BringIntoView ()
• FrameworkElement.InputScope property to choose which keyboard layout to show (numeric, email, url, etc)

Answer 2

A little bit late, I'll just improve tasaki example for a complete one of what I did to enable show/hide on gotFocus/LostFocus event when user click on a textBox in my WPF application for windows 8 tablet.I hope this help people with similar headache, because disabling InkHelper, doesn't really work well if u want to scroll with touch event...

First of all u must add these reference to your App.Xaml.cs File.

using System.Management;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

The code:

    protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs eventArgs)
    {
        EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(typeof(TextBox), UIElement.GotFocusEvent,
                                new RoutedEventHandler(GotFocus_Event), true);
        EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(typeof(TextBox), UIElement.LostFocusEvent,
                                new RoutedEventHandler(LostFocus_Event), true);

       MainApplication.Show();
    }

    private static void GotFocus_Event(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
       // TestKeyboard();
        OpenWindows8TouchKeyboard(sender, e);
    }
    //http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/29d7e0/get-the-key-board-details-of-your-system-in-windows-form/
    private static bool IsSurfaceKeyboardAttached()
    {
        SelectQuery Sq = new SelectQuery("Win32_Keyboard");
        ManagementObjectSearcher objOSDetails = new ManagementObjectSearcher(Sq);
        ManagementObjectCollection osDetailsCollection = objOSDetails.Get();
        //Windows 8 tablet are returnign 2 device when keyboard is connecto
        //My application won't be used for Desktop so this condition is fine
        //But u might want to see if keyboard is usb and == 1 so you are 
        //returning true or not on tablet.  
        return osDetailsCollection.Count <= 1 ? true : false;
    }

    private static void OpenWindows8TouchKeyboard(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        var textBox = e.OriginalSource as TextBox;        
        if (textBox != null && IsSurfaceKeyboardAttached())
        {
            var path = @"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ink\TabTip.exe";
            if (!File.Exists(path))
            {
                // older windows versions
                path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System) + @"\osk.exe";
            }
            Process.Start(path);
            textBox.BringIntoView();//SetFocus so u dont lose focused area
        }
    }
    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    public static extern int FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    public static extern int SendMessage(int hWnd, uint Msg, int wParam, int lParam);

    public const int WM_SYSCOMMAND = 0x0112;
    public const int SC_CLOSE = 0xF060;
    public const int SC_MINIMIZE = 0xF020;

    private void CloseOnscreenKeyboard()
    {
        // retrieve the handler of the window  
        int iHandle = FindWindow("IPTIP_Main_Window", "");
        if (iHandle > 0)
        {
            // close the window using API        
            SendMessage(iHandle, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_CLOSE, 0);
        }
    }

    private void LostFocus_Event(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // It's time to close the onscreen keyboard.
        CloseOnscreenKeyboard();
    }

Answer 3

I could successfully close onscreen keyboard with the following C# code.

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern int FindWindow(string lpClassName,string lpWindowName);

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern int SendMessage(int hWnd, uint Msg, int wParam, int lParam);

public const int WM_SYSCOMMAND = 0x0112;
public const int SC_CLOSE = 0xF060;

private void closeOnscreenKeyboard()
{
    // retrieve the handler of the window  
    int iHandle = FindWindow("IPTIP_Main_Window", "");
    if (iHandle > 0)
    {
        // close the window using API        
        SendMessage(iHandle, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_CLOSE, 0);
    }  
}

private void Some_Event_Happened(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // It's time to close the onscreen keyboard.
    closeOnscreenKeyboard();
}

I hope this will help you.

Answer 4

I am not sure how to hide the keyboard programmatically, but just as you know I just recently published a sample on how to trigger (as-in, show) the touch keyboard in WPF applications when a user clicks into a Textbox, its here:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Enabling-Windows-8-Touch-7fb4e6de

The cool thing about this sample, as it doesn't require the use of Process and instead uses supported Windows 8 API to trigger the touch keyboard for TextBox controls using automation.

It has been something I've been working on for many months, i'm glad to finally contribute this example to our community. Please let me know if there are any questions, suggestions, problems, etc in the sample Q&A pane

Answer 5

This should work to open, then kill the process.

Process proc = Process.Start(@"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ink\TabTip.exe");
proc.Kill();

Killing the process will close it.

If you debug and step through these two lines, however, the same error you mentioned above occurs - "Process has exited, so the request information is not available."

If you aren't stepping through these two lines while debugging, no exception is thrown and the on-screen keyboard will be killed.

If you use CloseMainWindow() the keyboard will not close. CloseMainWindow() is for processes with a UI, so you would think it would be effective on this, but perhaps because the keyboard is part of the OS it doesn't count.

Confirm that it works, then throw the proc.Kill() in a try-catch with error logging for peace of mind.

Answer 6

I open-sourced my project to automate everything concerning TabTip integration in WPF app.

You can get it on nuget, and after that all you need is a simple config in your apps startup logic:

TabTipAutomation.BindTo<TextBox>();

You can bind TabTip automation logic to any UIElement. Virtual Keyboard will open when any such element will get focus, and it will close when element will lose focus. Not only that, but TabTipAutomation will move UIElement (or Window) into view, so that TabTip will not block focused element.

For more info refer to the project site.