Skip to main content
Question

Force onscreen Keyboard when RFID/Bar Code scanner connected

  • October 17, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 29 views
FutureFacinLuke
Forum|alt.badge.img+8

Hi,

We are wanting to set up iPad Kiosks with integrated RFID scanners or Barcode scanners. Since the iPad treats this as a keyboard it hides the onscreen keyboard and the user at the kiosk would have to long press the bottom right of the screen to bring up the onscreen keyboard. I'm guessing that we are not the first company to come across this.

We could add a Magic Keyboard but that feels like a clunky solution.

Our dev team is writing an iOS app that will be used on these devices in single app mode, is there a way to force the iPad show the onscreen keyboard when a HW or BT keyboard is connected either in the app code or via a config profile?

    1 reply

    FutureFacinLuke
    Forum|alt.badge.img+8
    • FutureFacinLuke
    • Author
    • Valued Contributor
    • January 27, 2020

    I managed to find a solution for this.

    TL/DR connect a mouse and Enable Show On Screen Keyboard

    Our setup is an iPad in a plinth with very little access, once it's in all you can see is the screen and home button and the iPads are locked in Single App Mode to an In-House developed App which is essentially a web browser with restricted access.

    Student Life

    iPad is connected to a 4-Port USB3 Hub and Power.
    The Hub links to an Ethernet Adapter and USB RFID reader.
    We went with Ethernet as other Kiosk iPads we have on WiFi require a reboot at least once a month to reconnect WiFi

    With this in place we found that if the user hid the Keyboard under some circumstances to only way to get it back was to click in a text entry box, and scan an RFID card, then long press the show keyboard button. A pretty terrible user experience for a kiosk device.

    I scoured Settings and found Show On Screen Keyboard in Accessibility/Touch/Assistive Touch this was enabled but didn't resolve the issue. Since it was in the Mouse section I tried connecting a Mouse and then it behaved as expected. One little extra is that a restart causes the behaviour to revert so I have to temporarily exclude the device from the profile and re-apply the setting.

    With all the extra devices the iPad cannot be charged by the hub so I have had to split this out to cure a charging issue.

    I hope this helps anyone with a similar setup. I can't find this solution documented anywhere else online so I thought I'd put it here.

    I would also advise anyone who gets asked to set something like this up to use an Android device that runs on Power over Ethernet to avoid the rats nest of cables inside the plinths!

    K
    M
    Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement