NewDeal Hot Tip 1604
GEOS.INIWhen both keys are true, NewDeal will display the on-screen floating
keyboard gadget. that you can click on with your mouse to enter text.
Don't fret about "noKeyboard," you'll still be able to use your regular keyboard,
too. The floating keyboard will only be active when the text insertion point
is ready to accept key presses, like when you have NewWrite running or when
a dialog box that expects text entry is the active window. You can toggle
the floating keyboard on and off by clicking on the new item in your Express
menu. The floating keyboard can be a helpful tool for quickly entering those
special or extended characters without having to look up or remember some
of the more obscure key-press combinations. It might really be useful if
you know someone who, because of disability or for whatever reason, is unable
to use a keyboard but can manage a mouse or other input device.
It seems like a pretty handy tool. What are the disadvantages? Some folks find the floating keyboard to be "in the way" during certain operations. The floating keyboard has several different "modes," like alphabetic mode, keyboard-style, symbol mode, and even one you can't use which is designed for handwriting recognition on pen-based systems. Among the biggest caveats is in NewCalc. When the floating keyboard is enabled, you have to keep clicking on the input bar between each cell entry, because the application no longer retains its focus on accepting key presses.
You can adjust the size of the floating keyboard with the keyboardSize key in the [ui] category.
Last Modified 5 Mar 1999