My fix for keyboard popup in "Desktop" mode

[swindmiller]

I have a new 700t and have been annoyed that in Metro when you click on a field to type something the keyboard pops up automatically but in the "Desktop" mode it does not.
I found a AutoIT script from tj!2k7 on XDA-Developers forums that I modified and had converted to AutoHotKey (thanks to their forums), which is what I would rather use, and it seems to work. It basically monitors and when it sees the I-beam (cursor) in a text field it pops up the keyboard, it checks every 750ms. I had some issues while the script was running and when I went into Metro the keyboard would stay up. After some trial and error I found how to exclude Metro so the script did not work in Metro which it did not need to. I have also figured out how to have it auto-minimize the keyboard when you leave the text field.
I am no programmer and just pieced this together but figured I would share it in case others may want it and also if some more experience Ahk users may be able to expand on it
It does not work on everything, for example went to this site on IE on the Desktop and I got the keyboard to popup when I went to type the url in but when I went to login I did not get it. Again, hoping others can expand or help me expand on this

All the links below are zipped. Extract the contents wherever you want just making sure the "img" folder stays with the EXE.
Latest version that will auto-minimize the keyboard when you leave the textfield
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...D4zceisCMOCG5M

This is the same as the latest version but does not check to see if the tablet is docked. Some people with the Series 7 needed this to run it.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...JehbFhpms_q9SI

Version that just pops the keyboard up (does not auto-minimize it)
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...DsiJLTZ48fjusU


FAQ:
If you want to close the script just go into task manager and end the task "Desktop Keyboard" or AutoHotKey (something like that) if you run it as the AHK.

The systray icon can be used to toggle the script on and off by tapping it. A keyboard with a green circle is Enabled and a keyboard with a red circle is disabled. Thanks to lblb and gahfe for helping me with this!

If you get the message "Error: Can't load icon". You have to have an "img" folder wherever this EXE is with the 2 .ico files in it. You can find the 2 .ico files here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...Ba4CScN1M2UXCs

I got rid of having separate copies for 32bit and 64bit as the 32bit runs fine on my 64bit machine. There is not that much to the script so I don't think there is an advantage to having it 64bit. If I am wrong or you have a different opinion please let me know...this is all new to me.

If you want the source AHK files I put them all together here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resi...MwUNN4Sd2RIeFE please let me know if you make any changes as I would love to see them.

Please let me know how it works for you!

[gahfe]

Hi it works, I needed to change the tabtip path. I'm doing a similar program to, in this thread http://forum.tabletpcreview.com./win...-caller-3.html, I used your "IfWinNotActive, ahk_class Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow" to detect when modernUI is active, and works great

have a couple of questions about your code:
why is the line "RegRead, KBCount, HKLM, SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdclass\Enum , Count"?
and "IfWinNotActive, ahk_class OpusApp"?

thanks for sharing!

[swindmiller]

Hi it works, I needed to change the tabtip path. I'm doing a similar program to, in this thread http://forum.tabletpcreview.com./win...-caller-3.html, I used your "IfWinNotActive, ahk_class Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow" to detect when modernUI is active, and works great

have a couple of questions about your code:
why is the line "RegRead, KBCount, HKLM, SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdclass\Enum , Count"?
and "IfWinNotActive, ahk_class OpusApp"?

thanks for sharing!

Oh great, I am glad it works!! I saw your thread before but I think at the time you did not have a working version The "IfWinNotActive, ahk_class Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow" was hard to find but makes a world of difference. In Metro it would pop the keyboard up with no way to minimize it, I am glad it helped you out. I am going to try yours again to see if it works better than mine...maybe together we can get it to work the way Microsoft should have done.
As far as the 2 lines:
The regread was already in there from the code I found elsewhere so I am not sure what it is for but think it may detect if the keyboard is already popped up.
The second line I thought I removed I have Office 2013 and Word seems to want to have the keyboard up all the time so since 2013 already has touch enhancements and pops the keyboard up itself I just had it not run in Word. OpusApp is the name of the class for Word....no idea why that name though You can remove that line if you want.

[callmenoone]

working great on chrome, firefox and photoshop for me, is there a way to edit so when you touch out of the field the keyboard pops back in sort of like android?

[kontrol1]

wow this is exciting development. Props!

[swindmiller]

working great on chrome, firefox and photoshop for me, is there a way to edit so when you touch out of the field the keyboard pops back in sort of like android?

Was going to try that if this was working...but I am not a programmer so it will take me longer

wow this is exciting development. Props!

Thanks!

[swindmiller]

Here is the link where I got the original script from a poster named tj!2k7. He also has some ideas for getting the keyboard to minimize as well. Hopefully some progress will be made as this seems to be an important feature

[MOD REQUEST] Auto popup keyboard on desktop - Page 3 - xda-developers
What I used was on post 22.

[mnbrennan]

For some reason I'm being told that "This app can't run on your PC". Any idea why this might be?

[swindmiller]

For some reason I'm being told that "This app can't run on your PC". Any idea why this might be?

Are you running just the EXE or did you download AutoHotKey?

I can't remember exactly but when you get that message is there a link that says More Info or something like that. I get something like that on Win8 sometimes and when I click the link I get a button that says Run Anyway.

[docfreed]

So are you saying that the exe file also needs AutoHotKey installed - I thought that these compiled scripts were standalone?

Are you running just the EXE or did you download AutoHotKey?

I can't remember exactly but when you get that message is there a link that says More Info or something like that. I get something like that on Win8 sometimes and when I click the link I get a button that says Run Anyway.