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Hi all,

KDE Connect is really a nice piece of software, I love it!

I'm aware that the Android app offers remote input functionality, from mobile to desktop. What I'm missing much more would be the opposite direction, using your desktop's keyboard to type longer texts on your mobile.

As I was not able to find a well-working VNC-Server for Android, I've used TeamViewer for a while. But there was a bug for years, no German "umlauts" (äöüÄÖÜ).

Just recently I've touched this topic in the #suse IRC channel, accidentally, and got the hint for a remote keyboard app in F-Droid repository: https://f-droid.org/app/de.onyxbits.remotekeyboard. Does what it should, somewhat intricate because of using insecure telnet, but fine. To use it, you have to switch manually to the related "Remote Keyboard" Android input method.

And when doing this switch for the first time, I've found that there's also an Android input method called "KDE Connect Remote Keyboard" on my smartphone.

What's the job of this input method, can't find any docs about it? Might there be a Desktop to Mobile keyboard functionality available already, hidden, undocumented?
Would be cool.

If not, this would be my nice-to-have KDE Brainstorm idea

The functionality of this input method is to allow you to type from the Desktop and have that show up on the Mobile.
You first have to enable that on both the Desktop (ensure that the "Remote keyboard from the desktop" plugin is selected in the KDE Connect settings) and Mobile (enable the KDE Connect Remote Keyboard input method and switch to it).
Then to send the keystrokes from the Desktop to the Mobile, you pop up the KDE Connect widget and there you should see a text box that you will use for the Phone input.

(tested on PCLOS up-to-date, KDE 5.12, KDE Connect 1.2.1 and LG G4 with KDE Connect 1.7.1).

I don't know of any documentation, only discovered by poking around at different things.
Digging into the code, I see that it was implemented a year ago in KDE Connect version 1.2 for PC and 1.6 for Mobile.

airdrik,

thank you very much for answering!

airdrik wrote: (tested on PCLOS up-to-date, KDE 5.12, KDE Connect 1.2.1 and LG G4 with KDE Connect 1.7.1).

Just checked, my OpenSuse 42.3 is (still) on kdeconnect 1.0.3, but the soon-to-be-come OpenSuse 15.0 (pls don't care about OpenSuse's version numbering ) will have 1.2.1 (https://software.opensuse.org/package/kdeconnect-kde)

airdrik wrote:You first have to enable that on both the Desktop (ensure that the "Remote keyboard from the desktop" plugin is selected in the KDE Connect settings)

Exactly that's missing / was not available for 1.0.3

airdrik wrote:Then to send the keystrokes from the Desktop to the Mobile, you pop up the KDE Connect widget and there you should see a text box that you will use for the Phone input.

Not sure if I understand this: Isn't it possible to use the "KDE remote keyboard" in ANY android context, wherever you could type anything? Unclear for me what you mean with "you should see a text box that you will use for the Phone input"


I'm looking forward for OpenSuse 15.0, as I guess that my KDE/Plasma version 5.8 might be to old for an isolated install of kdeconnect 1.2.1.

And I think this bloody cool feature should be highlighted and pointed out, and not be hidden.
There are countless occasions where I love an external (real) keyboard for android.

michaelof wrote:airdrik,

thank you very much for answering!

airdrik wrote: (tested on PCLOS up-to-date, KDE 5.12, KDE Connect 1.2.1 and LG G4 with KDE Connect 1.7.1).

Just checked, my OpenSuse 42.3 is (still) on kdeconnect 1.0.3, but the soon-to-be-come OpenSuse 15.0 (pls don't care about OpenSuse's version numbering ) will have 1.2.1 (https://software.opensuse.org/package/kdeconnect-kde)

That would be it. I checked the logs and the functionality was added in 1.2

michaelof wrote:

airdrik wrote:Then to send the keystrokes from the Desktop to the Mobile, you pop up the KDE Connect widget and there you should see a text box that you will use for the Phone input.

Not sure if I understand this: Isn't it possible to use the "KDE remote keyboard" in ANY android context, wherever you could type anything? Unclear for me what you mean with "you should see a text box that you will use for the Phone input"

I suppose I wasn't too clear there.
On the Phone, you just need to be using the KDE remote keyboard as your input method and then wherever you need to type stuff it will work.
On the PC, to send keystrokes to the Phone, you pop up the KDE Connect widget and (in 1.2 or later) there will be a text box where you can type stuff and it will send what you type to the Phone.

michaelof wrote:
I'm looking forward for OpenSuse 15.0, as I guess that my KDE/Plasma version 5.8 might be to old for an isolated install of kdeconnect 1.2.1.

And I think this bloody cool feature should be highlighted and pointed out, and not be hidden.
There are countless occasions where I love an external (real) keyboard for android.

Agreed. I thought I saw mention of it listed in a feature list somewhere, but certainly nothing more than that.
It took some digging (primarily in the code repo) to find what I did, whereas a demo video or a tutorial or something would be nice.