Mapp View - WebViewer widget keyboard

Hello :slight_smile:

we use WebViewer in widget to embed third party visualizations in mappView.

This works mostly very well.

Problem is if a keyboard input in third party visualization is needed. There is no chance to enter text since there is no USB keyboard connected on our machine.

I don’t find a possibility in WebViewer widget to open the mappView keyboard.

Has anybody a idea how to solve this?

Greeting Simon

Hi @Simon_Stoll ,

I didn’t try it, but maybe this could help you Custom keyboards GUID: d54641de-319c-4495-974f-6a2a0561ef93

Hi @Simon_Stoll

You can check about MappView configuration “Security policy” parameter (B&R Online Help)

In help, there is mention for Paper widget but maybe this is also for WebViewer?

Hi Vanessa,

thank you for your idea. But I think CustomKeyboards cannot be used in Webviewer widget, too. :confused:

Hello Simon,
did you allready try to use WebViewer Action “Focus” to set focus to the WebViewer Widget before using your keyboard (it just works if you activate “keyboardOperation” in vis File see B&R Online Help (br-automation.com))?
BR Andy

Hi Andy,

I have no hardware keyboard on my machine available.

I just want to use virtual (mappView) keyboard inside the WebViewer widget.

Greetings Simon

Hi Simon,
thats clear so far… But maybe you could give “Focus” a try to see, if the not available Focus could be the reason…
Does your third party visualization has an own virtual keyboard?

…focus to webViewer widget you can set with e.g. button that is on the same content, or not? I have never tried it in this way.

Hallo Andy,

i did set focus by focus action triggered by a button. But this didn’t work for me.

I think focus action is useful if you want to navigate with a (hardware) keyboard in your visualization and don’t want to use your touchscreen or mouse.
See in help: B&R Online Help (br-automation.com)

But I want to enter text if no hardware keyboard is connected.

My third party visualization has no own virtual keyboard.

There is a FocusIn event for WebViewer widget. This could be useful in this usecase.

Last step would be to open the virtual keyboard in mappView by an action.
But I don’t know how or whether this is possible yet :see_no_evil:

What you’re trying to do is not possible / supported with mapp View.
The mapp View keyboards are not integrated into the operating system or browser - they are part of the mapp View framework. This means, only mapp View or mapp View widgets “know” about these keyboards and can open and interact with them. Your 3rd party visualization does neither know about these keyboards, nor is there an interface to reach these keyboards.

Theoretically the WebViewer could open the keyboard - but the WebViewer is just a wrapper around a “web page”, he does not know anything about the content (he does even not have full access to the web page!).

In essence this means, the included “web page” needs to support interaction without a connected (hardware) keyboard.

However, I could imagine two workarounds (!not tested!):

  1. Operating systems provides an on-screen-keyboard. In theory it should be possible to use this on-screen-keyboard to enter values in an included web page, it sort of simulates a hardware keyboard …

  2. If possible expose the 3rd party visualization via VNC … in this case you could include it with the VNCViewer, which supports the mapp View keyboards.

5 Likes

Thank you very much for your input and technical explanation.

I will try with osk.exe. Maybe this is an solution for us.

1 Like

There is some additional input in this reply:

1 Like