Onboard 1.4.2

Description

Onboard is an onscreen keyboard useful for everybody that cannot use a hardware keyboard; for example Tablet-PC users or mobility impaired users. It has been designed with simplicity in mind and can be used right away without the need of any configuration, as it can read the keyboard layout from the X server. Onboard is currently not working with wayland - a correct X11/Xorg setup is required.

The parent project at https://launchpad.net/onboard sadly seems not to be maintained anymore. Old PPA downloads for Ubuntu-releases can still be found at https://launchpad.net/~onboard/+archive/ubuntu/stable .

Building from Source

Find below short instructions on how to build Onboard straight from this github repository. If you have improvements to share, get errors or run into other problems, please let us know. Build instructions for new distributions are always welcome too.

!!! First uninstall ALL onboard and mousetweaks packages !!!

Ubuntu:

    # Uninstall
    sudo apt purge onboard onboard-common onboard-data
    sudo apt purge mousetweaks

    # Install dependencies
    sudo apt install git build-essential python3-packaging python3-dev
    sudo apt install dh-python python3-distutils-extra devscripts pkg-config
    sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev libxtst-dev libxkbfile-dev libdconf-dev libcanberra-dev
    sudo apt install libhunspell-dev libudev-dev
    
    # Build
    git clone https://github.com/dr-ni/onboard
    cd onboard
    python3 setup.py clean
    python3 setup.py build
    
    # Install
    sudo tools/install_gsettings_schema
    sudo python3 setup.py install

    # Change keyboard language layout
    # setxkbmap -layout de
    # or [us|in|ru|...]
    
    # Uninstall
    sudo python3 setup.py install --record files.txt
    sudo xargs -a files.txt --delimiter='\n' rm -v
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/onboard
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python3.*/dist-packages/onboard-1.4.*.egg-info/
    sudo rm files.txt

Arch Linux:

    # Uninstall
    sudo pacman -S mousetweaks
    sudo pacman -S onboard
    
    # Install dependencies
    pacman -S base-devel git python-packaging python-distutils-extra dconf gtk3 \
    libcanberra hunspell python-gobject gsettings-desktop-schemas \
    iso-codes python-cairo librsvg python-dbus dbus-glib

    # Build
    git clone https://github.com/dr-ni/onboard
    cd onboard
    python3 setup.py clean
    python3 setup.py build
    
    # Install
    sudo tools/install_gsettings_schema
    sudo python3 setup.py install
    
    # Uninstall
    sudo python3 setup.py install --record files.txt
    sudo xargs -a files.txt --delimiter='\n' rm -v
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/onboard
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python3.*/dist-packages/onboard-1.4.*.egg-info/
    sudo rm files.txt

Mageia:

    # Install dependencies
    urpmi git gcc-c++ lib64zlib-devel python3-distutils-extra
    urpmi libgtk+3.0-devel libxtst-devel libxkbfile-devel libdconf-devel
    urpmi libhunspell-devel libcanberra-devel libpython3-devel intltool
    # more or less optional, but recommended for full functionality
    urpmi lib64atspi-gir2.0 at-spi2-core-qt python3-dbus qtatspi-plugin

    # Build
    git clone https://github.com/dr-ni/onboard
    cd onboard
    python3 setup.py clean
    python3 setup.py build
    
    # Install
    sudo tools/install_gsettings_schema
    sudo python3 setup.py install
    
    # Uninstall
    sudo python3 setup.py install --record files.txt
    sudo xargs -a files.txt --delimiter='\n' rm -v
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/onboard
    sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python3.*/dist-packages/onboard-1.4.*.egg-info/
    sudo rm files.txt

Manuals

    # Terminal
    man onboard
    
    # Interactive
    yelp "help:onboard"
    xdg-open "help:onboard"

    # Onboard
    # Right click on icon in systray -> Help

Build and Install Debian Packages

To build Debian packages from the source, two scripts are available:

build_debs.sh: Creates the .deb packages and related metadata.
install_debs_with_local_repo.sh: Sets up a local repository and installs the packages on a target system.

Notes

Both scripts automatically use sudo to install dependencies or packages.
Ensure you have sudo privileges and be ready to enter your password when prompted during execution.

Build Debian Packages

The build_debs.sh script automates building .deb packages and associated metadata in ./build/debs

Steps:

For Current Releases:
- Ensure you are in the Onboard source directory and execute the following commands:
```
chmod +x build_debs.sh
./build_debs.sh
```

For Older Releases:

If the build_debs.sh script is missing, copy it into the source directory and run:

cp /path/to/build_debs.sh /path/to/onboard_sources/
cd /path/to/onboard_sources/
chmod +x build_debs.sh
./build_debs.sh

The Debian packages will be saved in the directory: /path/to/onboard_sources/build/debs

Install the Debian Packages

The install_debs_with_local_repo.sh script simplifies installing the generated .deb packages using a local repository.

Steps:

Prepare Files:
- Copy the following to a directory on the target system:
  - All .deb files.
  - The Packages.gz file.
  - The install_debs_with_local_repo.sh script.

Run the Script:

Navigate to the directory and execute:

chmod +x install_debs_with_local_repo.sh
./install_debs_with_local_repo.sh

D-Bus interface

The Onboard D-Bus interface allows communication between Onboard and other processes running concurrently on the Linux desktop.

Here the Interface description: DBUS.md

Mousetweaks

This optional package provides mouse accessibility enhancements for the GNOME desktop. It offers a way to perform clicks without using any physical mouse buttons (Hover Click). The package is also available in various package managers. However, it is often not working anymore with onboard. In this case a manual installation from https://github.com/dr-ni/mousetweaks should help.

Homepage

https://github.com/dr-ni/onboard

Reporting Bugs

https://github.com/dr-ni/onboard/issues

License

This program is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Please see the file COPYING for details.