[UTM] USB Keyboard doesn't send special keys (Ctrl, Alt, CMD)

[tihmstar]

1)
When connecting a keyboard over USB to my iPad, input mostly works if the keyboard sheet is open (it is minimized ot only display the special chars).
However pressing "special keys" like arrorw up,down,left,right or ctr,alt,cmd/Super/Windows key don't seem to be forwarded.

2)
Also i wasn't able to type the > character.
Typing it from USB keyboard, doesn't do anything.
Typing it from onscreen keyboard prints : instead (german QWERTZ layout in iOS).

3)
Another thing (dunno if i should maybe open another issue for this):
When connecting USB keyboard it is desired to hide all overlays and have the VM run fullscreen.
As of right now the special keys overlay (which is atm required for keypresses to reach the VM) hides some part of the screen.
The overlay on top also hides some parts of the screen.

Suggestion: there should be an option to have the screen resized to fit inbetween these overlays.
This is potentially useful when typing on the onscreen keyboard, because you then still would have the full overview of the VM and you see what you're actually typing

[j005u]

This is a major usability hurdle on an iPad Pro with the keyboard folio. I'll see if I can get around to putting together a PR eventually but for reference, all the special keys are handled completely separately via the UIKeyCommand API. You have to essentially pre-register for every possible function + other key combo you want to handle. Arrow keys are much simpler though.

I dug around a bit, here's a couple of useful links, in case I don't get around to it:

https://github.com/FlexingTiger/dospad/blob/74802b8e697978962fe9c040542a59d124562f70/dospad/Shared/UIExtendedTextField.m#L24
https://github.com/linuxdeepin/qcef-chromium/blob/65d8032a829f1e0bcd65ba010c1f70123143e6fc/src/ios/chrome/browser/ui/key_commands_provider.mm#L63
https://github.com/gregshutt/cordova-plugin-keyboard-listener/blob/9d276eceb4a060aab9a9cdc5116be0767f4b3919/src/ios/KeyboardListener.m#L54
https://github.com/ColdGrub1384/Pisth/blob/a0428818f17aa0433eb73f3a71b3f60ad2e11aa5/Pisth/ViewControllers/Classes/ContentViewController.swift#L139

I believe iPad OS also added some basic BLE/usb mouse support, haven't gotten around to testing it yet though, can't say if the cursor events are available always or just when clicking.

[terhechte]

iPad OS 13.4 will finally expand this to detect key up / down sequences like any other sane operating system has been doing for a long time without the insanity that is the UIKeyCommand abstraction:

https://twitter.com/johnsundell/status/1225177084965851137

[zweck]

Oh man, literally the only thing stopping me from trying to get i3 running on my iPad

[osy]

Fixed in 392e23f

[brunocastello]

When using the iPad Pro Smart Cover Keyboard (or even the iOS screen virtual keyboard), some games on MSDOS 6.22 don’t recognize the keyboard keys in certain situations. For example, MicroProse’s F1GP (1991), the keys work naturally within the menu screens, but when I go to race, the game simply does not recognize the keys to control the car (A, Z, < and >). I can’t play DOOM either, the character does not move because the game also does not recognize the controls (but within the menu screens they do). It’s a strange behavior and I believe it has something to do with the low level instructions or something like that?

Also, in certain situations, while I am typing, one key or another gets stuck forever and the VM crashes.

And on an unrelated note, just for comparison, I do not get these problems while using iDOS2/DOSPad on iPad Pro. But for other several (good) reasons, I’d like to use UTM instead of iDOS2.

[osy]

Please file a new issue as this ticket is closed and nobody will look at this. For reference though this issue may be hard to solve as iPad doesn’t send raw key events so we pretend to press a key up and down. This makes key holds hard. I’ve heard 13.4 changes this but haven’t explored it.