I'm working on an Electron application that is intended to run on a panel touchscreen computer running Debian. I have enabled the on-screen keyboard board in desktop settings and can see it come up in other applications (such as terminal). However, the on screen keyboard does not come up inside of my electron app when a text input gains focus. I have read that this might be some sort of weirdness with Chromium (see https://askubuntu.com/questions/939616/why-the-onboard-on-screen-keyboard-doesnt-auto-show-in-google-chrome) but have unable to find any workarounds.
I suppose that my question is in two parts:
1 - is there anything that I can do to get Electron to play nicely with the gnome 3 built in keyboard?
2 - is there any program that I can call that would show and/ or hide the on-screen keyboard?
The OS that I am targeting is Debian version 10.3 with the Gnome desktop.
After quite a bit of research, I learned that, in order to trigger the on-screen keyboard for Gnome, an application must be developed around GTK. Any application that fails to do so is considered "foreign" on the Gnome desktop. Apparently, Chrome falls into this category and Electron built apps as well because they are built on Chromium.
With all that said, it is still possible for a foreign application to send on-screen keyboard events through dbus. The issue at CentOS On screen keyboard not showing for Jawa Swing Text entry fields describes these events as follows:
To turn the keyboard on:
dbus-send --type=method_call --dest=org.gnome.Caribou.Keyboard /org/gnome/Caribou/Keyboard org.gnome.Caribou.Keyboard.Show uint32:0
To turn the keyboard off:
dbus-send --type=method_call --dest=org.gnome.Caribou.Keyboard /org/gnome/Caribou/Keyboard org.gnome.Caribou.Keyboard.Hide uint32:0
It is hard to paste all the code because I do not exactly know what is happening. My app is using a Tab Navigator as it's main navigation, and it works perfectly fine when I run it normally.
HOWEVER,
Whenever I forcefully quit it using the Android left button, it stops working when I reopen it.
Once it is re-open, I am able to swipe through all my tabs but each screen is FROZEN. I cannot click anything and the Tab Navigator does not update (it shows the initialRoute still selected).
I am very confused on what is causing the problem, my initial guess would be something to do with listeners but I really don't know which part of my app causes this. I have added the Firebase tag for this reason. I would like to try turning off all my listeners if the app is force closed, but I don't know if this is possible.
Other details:
I mostly use 'on' listeners.
Thanks.
My application is an overlay (alwaysOnTop) for a full screen game and when the user clicks on my overlay it takes focus and shows the taskbar on top of their game as well. Taking focus is fine, but I can't have the taskbar show.
It says in the BrowserWindow docs:
not a toolbox window which can not be focused on
Implying that it is possible to create a window which cannot be focused on.
Does anyone know how to create a toolbox window, or to simply avoid having the taskbar showing when clicking on the electron window?
I should mention I've tried setAlwaysOnTop and skipTaskbar. I also have transparent: true and frame: false.
The overlay I've created is the "Safelane, Midlane, Offlane" buttons. When I run the application it shows on top of the full screen app (Dota 2) like this:
After clicking on the interface the taskbar appears. It would be fine that the full screen app (Dota) loses focus, the task bar appears on top which breaks the continuity of the experience:
I would like the experience to stay like the first image--when the user clicks on anything in my overlay, the taskbar should not show.
Electron GitHub Issue
Additional Solution Info -- After using Gaafar's solution below
Setting kiosk: true in the setup does not seem to allow it to render transparent. Using setKiosk(true) within a setTimeout after the window has been opened seemed to work.
I also found that any windows using kiosk or fullscreen with transparency had rendering issue. It would render multiple times on top of itself and could not unrender items (display: none in css would do nothing). The way I fixed this was by using Electron Window Manager creating a single kiosk window with nothing in it and creating other non-kiosk windows with the HTML / CSS interfaces. The result:
All of the interfaces can be interacted with, mouse and keyboard.
Rendering happens as it does regularly in electron.
The fullscreen application below receives input through any transparent areas.
Taskbar never shows up on any input.
skipTaskbar: true is to prevent showing your app in the taskbar.
To hide the taskbar altogether use fullscreen or kiosk mode instead
fullscreen: true
or
kiosk: true
EDIT:
There are some issues open where fullscreen or kiosk modes prevent the transparency of the window.
A solution that works for me is to run with these flags --enable-transparent-visuals --disable-gpu
issue & solution: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/2170#issuecomment-145942717
showInActive();
set your BrowserWindows, focusable: false
Im gonna post a solution some might be facing with full screening, I was facing this issue and wandering here and there, this StackOverflow post kept coming up.
So Im posting it here so people getting similar problems can get help.
When fullscreening taskbar getting in way.
When you fullscreen using mainWindow.setFullScreen(true) taskbar will get in way when you are on home (all windows minimized) in windows.
Here is the solution:
ipcMain.on("fullscreenon",()=>{
mainWindow.setAlwaysOnTop(true, 'screen-saver');
mainWindow.setFullScreen(true);
})
//The order of the commands is important below
//don't setAlwaysOnTop() before getting out of fullscreen.
ipcMain.on("fullscreenoff",()=>{
mainWindow.setFullScreen(false);
mainWindow.setAlwaysOnTop(true, 'floating')
})
Basically, by default setFullscreen uses the level: "floating". We need a higher level, "screen-saver" is the highest level I think.
I am programming a Delphi (XE3) application where mouse position is important, but I would like to be able with another mouse to be able to set breakpoints without moving the primary mouse position. I may be pressing shift or control in the application I am trying to debug, so alt-tabbing to the IDE and setting a breakpoint with the keyboard keyboard won't work. Can Windows 7 easily be set up to do this?
It's possible to attach multiple keyboards and mice to a computer, and various video games can take advantage of the multiple input devices, but the OS in general does not take advantage of that. No matter how many keyboards and mice you attach, there's still just one input queue and one cursor on the screen.
If all you need is to set breakpoints without moving the mouse, then you can navigate the input caret to the desired line with the keyboard and then press F5 to toggle breakpoints.
If you need to be able to debug without interfering with the program at all, then you might need to use remote debugging. Although the documentation suggests using Remote Desktop to operate the remote program while you're sitting at the local system, that's not what you want to do in this situation because you'll still have just one set of input devices. Instead, log on to the remote computer from elsewhere (either directly, or via Remote Desktop on a third computer). It'll help to have two computers you can access from the same chair.
This is more of a general annoyance. Every time after stopping the simulator, Xcode jumps to main.m for some reason. On the left nav, it jumps to the Debug Navigator.
Is there a way to fix this?
It's annoying because I might be testing a certain line of code, and now each time, I need to make a couple of clicks just to go back to that code.
This problem is not new, seems to get worse though. At the time of writing this, I was on the GM seed, but this problem persists in XCode 4.2 final. This was not a problem in previous versions of XCode.
When we start debug from xcode, the debugger sets itself up to monitor signals from OS. When we press stop button in XCode (or hit cmd + R - which first stops existing instance running and then try to start new one, somewhat equalant to we press manually stop first and then run) SIGKILL is sent to the debugger.
Whenever the cause of interruption is from outside the app (in other words all cases where SIGKILL is sent, like stop button press) , debugger jumps to main, since main is the root of the app and the place where your app meets the OS. Debugger has no way to identify why this SIGKILL is issued (pressing stop button in xcode/ press cmd + R/ delete app from multitasking bar etc), but it treats SIGKILL as outside interrupt, and nothing related with your code. So it jumps to main.
If the cause of interruption is from inside the app (like app crash/SIGABRT) debugger handles it and jumps to the place of crash, which we normally see.
I do not consider this as an xcode bug, rather a normal way of handling SIGKILL. But if you want to stay at your code and do not want to jump to main you can do two things
You can do as Gabe suggested. As BBonified said, it is like a band-aide,
but I think it should work (personally I never tried that)
Report a bug/request for a feature here. Let me tell you you
are not the first one to do so. Already a bug has been reported. See
this and this. But I don't have much hope of a positive action from Apple
And I agree with you, it is sometimes annoying. Especially if you have experienced differently in previous XCode versions. But we can only take what they give here.
I guess it's fair to call it a bug, Xcode 3 specifically suppressed this useless artefact.
I've had success (four times and counting) with this one-liner in ~/.gdbinit:
handle SIGKILL nostop noprint nopass
Taken from this gdb manual:
http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/gdb/gdb_39.html
Not sure if it applies to lldb as well.
I tried what David suggested but that didn't work for me, so I tried something similar:
Open Preferences, select Behaviors tab.
Select "Run exits unexpectedly" from left column.
Select "Show debugger with current views".
I'm using Xcode version 4.2 build 4D199.
EDIT: That worked for about 15 minutes. Then it reverted to bringing up main.m in the editor again.
I had the same problem and it WAS really annoying, especially when you were in the middle of debugging, stopping/launching the app several times in a row after small modifications.
Everything is solvable through settings in Xcode user preferences:
Just go to "run completes"
There find the "Show" line and click the checkbox
On the same line modify target to go to "Current" in the dropdown menu.
There you go. Xcode will not move your editing view from now on. Enjoy.
PS: Xcode version 4.2 Build 4C199
Go to Preferences -> Behaviors. Choose "Run Completes" in the left hand side. Check the box next to "Show Tab" and enter a tab name. I use "Edit". This way whenever you stop, you will always be back at a tab called Edit.
None of the other solutions listed were suitable for me, so I made a macro (using an external hotkey utility).
(wait 0.1 second after each step)
command-period
command-1
down arrow
up arrow
command-j
enter
Use this key instead of the normal stop, and you end up with your cursor positioned where you left it. Very nice.
Xcode -> Preferences
Under Behaviors
Click on Run Starts
Checkbox for [Show] debugger with [Current Views]
...worked for me.
None of the preference adjustments seem to work for me.
I have been able to track the offending sequence of events. The SIGKILL error message will occur when you run your app and use multiple threads. For instance, when using UIWebView in my app it will abort to main.m. I verified that when UIWebView is not called, XCode can be stopped without the SIGKILL error message returning the user to main.m
It looks like there are at least two threads that get started when initializing a UIWebView.
However, any threads created by you during the running of your app will cause the SIGKILL to improperly notify XCODE to return to the main.
You can see this in the GDB that there is a switch just before SIGKILL:
[Switching to process 24957 thread 0x2103]
[Switching to process 24957 thread 0x7403]
[Switching to process 24957 thread 0x207]
Program ended with exit code: 0
It is definitely still a bug with XCODE that will hopefully be fixed.
For now, if you avoid executing code that launches a separate thread, it will not change the view back to main.m For code that does launch additional threads, I would recommend quitting the simulator to return to edit mode in XCODE.
None of these solutions worked for me and I find the behavior too intrusive to put up with.
I get round it by using the 'Assistant Editor' instead of the editor as my main editing window. You access the Assistant Editor using the tiny little bow tie button at the top right of the single window.
You can set then it to 'Manual'. Click on the button that is the far left crumb of the breadcrumb trail at the top of the Assistant Editor frame and select Manual from the pop-up menu that appears. The Manual setting allows you to select the file you're editing by clicking on the second to last crumb of the breadcrumb trail and selecting the file from the pop-up that appears.
I then just minimize the size of the main editor - or use it as a secondary editing window, useful given that you can't split the editors into multiple frames any more. Far from ideal - but that's XCode 4 for you.
This might not be much. I was able to avoid this problem 99% of the time by waiting for 2 seconds or so after stopping the app, before relaunching it.
UPDATE: After upgrading to the latest Xcode, I am prompted to use LLDB instead of GDB. The problem seems to be gone now.
I was trying to find the offending line when my code was breaking, so what I did was:
Go to where you define your breakpoints (breakpoint navigator, according to the documentation)
Click in the "+" sign in the left bottom corner of the navigation area
Click on Add Exception breakpoint
You click Done
Run your app
Xcode shows you the offending line.