Soft-keyboard under Windows

Haxe
#1

Hi. I’m having trouble getting the soft-keyboard to present itself at all under Windows, when an input TextField gets focus.

I’m testing this on a Microsoft Surface Book in Tablet mode. I’ve tried Neko, Windows, Flash and HTML5 targets, with no success. My ultimate target is HTML5 though.

This is a snippet of the relevant code. My TextField does get focus (as indicated by the border made visible when touched), it’s just not activating the Windows soft-keyboard. Is there something I’m doing incorrectly?

function init():Void
{
	inputText = new TextField();
	inputText.type = TextFieldType.INPUT;
	inputText.width = 1015;
	inputText.height = 53;
	inputText.backgroundColor = 0xF2F2F2;
	inputText.opaqueBackground = 0xF2F2F2;
	inputText.borderColor = 0x014086;

	inputText.needsSoftKeyboard = true;
	inputText.addEventListener(FocusEvent.FOCUS_IN, focusIn);
	inputText.addEventListener(FocusEvent.FOCUS_OUT, focusOut);		

	addChild(inputText);
}

private function focusIn(e:FocusEvent):Void 
{
	inputText.requestSoftKeyboard();
	inputText.border = true;
}

private function focusOut(e:FocusEvent):Void 
{
	inputText.border = false;
}
#2

I found this online:

In Windows 8/8.1, the only was for the on-screen keyboard to automatically pop-up when the user taps on a field (like the URL field in IE) is in a Metro/Modern UI application. If user is using a standard x86/x64 app from the desktop in “desktop mode”, the keyboard will not pop-up automatically. I believe Microsoft programmed this on purpose because they believed if you are in the desktop mode, you must be using a keyboard and mouse because the desktop mode is unfriendly is touch screens.

There is no way to get the on-screen keyboard to pop-up in the desktop mode without manually bringing it up.

Now, there are several 3rd party applications on the web, like the one I posted, that DOES add this functionality to the desktop.
You would need to download and install them in order to use their functionality.

Without a 3rd party application, the on-screen keyboard will have to be manually activated in the desktop mode

We do not do Windows Universal Applications, but its been on my list for a while. I know someone who already has a working template, we would just need to add it to Lime templates and Lime tools to work

#3

Ah right. Thanks for that. We have control of the tablets in this set up, so a 3rd party app enabling soft-keyboard pop-up may sort it out for us.

Thanks again.