Virtual Keyboard in Qt Quick

This example shows how to use the virtual keyboard in a Qt Quick application.

The example has two implementations: one for desktop platforms and another for embedded platforms. The former version enables text input into several text fields using the virtual keyboard, whereas the latter version uses the same UI but with a custom virtual keyboard InputPanel. The following snippet from basic.pro shows how the qmake project is set up to choose the appropriate implementation based on the CONFIG options:

 !qtConfig(vkb-desktop) {
     DEFINES += MAIN_QML=\\\"basic-b2qt.qml\\\"
 } else {
     DEFINES += MAIN_QML=\\\"Basic.qml\\\"
 }

The example enables the virtual keyboard by setting the QT_IM_MODULE environment variable before loading the .qml file:

 #include <QQuickView>
 #include <QGuiApplication>
 #include <QQmlEngine>

 int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 {
     qputenv("QT_IM_MODULE", QByteArray("qtvirtualkeyboard"));

     QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);
     QQuickView view(QString("qrc:/%2").arg(MAIN_QML));
     if (view.status() == QQuickView::Error)
         return -1;
     view.setResizeMode(QQuickView::SizeRootObjectToView);

     view.show();

     return app.exec();
 }

Besides this, it uses custom TextField and TextArea items to configure the [ENTER] key behavior using the EnterKeyAction attached property.

 import QtQuick
 import QtQuick.Controls
 import QtQuick.VirtualKeyboard
 import "content"

 Rectangle {
     ...
                 TextField {
                     width: parent.width
                     placeholderText: "One line field"
                     enterKeyAction: EnterKeyAction.Next
                     onAccepted: passwordField.focus = true
                 }
     ...
                 TextArea {
                     id: textArea
                     width: parent.width
                     placeholderText: "Multiple line field"
                     height: Math.max(206, implicitHeight)
                 }
 }

The TextField and TextArea controls extend the respective Qt Quick Controls 2 types with enterKeyEnabled and enterKeyAction properties. The TextField and TextArea instances in the snippet can set these properties to change the default behavior.

Running the Example

To run the example from Qt Creator, open the Welcome mode and select the example from Examples. For more information, visit Building and Running an Example.

Example project @ code.qt.io