Using Citect with Touchscreens (no keyboard)

Does anyone use Citect with touchscreen monitors? If so, how do you get a proper on-screen keyboard to display? (e.g. one with full functionality, not just a bunch of all-caps keys and numbers, as in the Citect form from the Toolbox)

The suggested way from support is to launch the Windows osk. But I seem to fight with this every time, with Exec either not having privilege to run commands, the osk bringing up errors "cannot launch" or just an error box which is blank. I've tried the solutions in all of the relevant KB / TN articles, including one from Wonderware.

What are others' experiences with this, and how do you go about it?

One solution I've found to work is to circumvent using the Windows osk and its launch issues, and go with a free osk (e.g. www.freevirtualkeyboard.com), however many customers see using applications from the ineternet as security risks (and rightly so).

It's incredibly frustrating that a native osk has not been developed yet, as this is something available on almost all other platforms I've used, and is imperative to touchscreen operation :/

Parents
  • The issue with OSK.exe is a Windows issue.
    if you search in google, it would seem that at some point in time, Microsoft "fixed" the issue where osk.exe would launch without UAC elevation. This then broke backward compatibility of programs relying on on-screen-keyboard be launched by 3rd party applications. In our case, when Citect32.exe is running with normal privilege (no elevation), launching on-screen-keyboard will result with windows error code 740 0x2E4.
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681388(v=vs.85).aspx

    In Windows Event viewer -> Applications and Services Log > Microsoft > UAC > Operational, note error message as follows:
    The process failed to handle ERROR_ELEVATION_REQUIRED during the creation of a child process.

    Considering the security context of Citect, its behaviour is correct as it cannot launching external processes that require elevation unless itself is elevated.
    There are different approaches:
    1) Third-party software:
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/On-Screen%20Keyboard%20Portable/

    2) Use the on-screen keyboard on Windows 10 when enabling the tablet mode compatibility. With this setting, Windows 10 will show the keyboard when an input field is selected, such as a tablet or smartphone.

    3) Another good option can be to use a Cicode Keyboard you can download here:
    https://softwareforums.aveva.com/citect_community/cit-toolbox/f/187/t/25147
Reply
  • The issue with OSK.exe is a Windows issue.
    if you search in google, it would seem that at some point in time, Microsoft "fixed" the issue where osk.exe would launch without UAC elevation. This then broke backward compatibility of programs relying on on-screen-keyboard be launched by 3rd party applications. In our case, when Citect32.exe is running with normal privilege (no elevation), launching on-screen-keyboard will result with windows error code 740 0x2E4.
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681388(v=vs.85).aspx

    In Windows Event viewer -> Applications and Services Log > Microsoft > UAC > Operational, note error message as follows:
    The process failed to handle ERROR_ELEVATION_REQUIRED during the creation of a child process.

    Considering the security context of Citect, its behaviour is correct as it cannot launching external processes that require elevation unless itself is elevated.
    There are different approaches:
    1) Third-party software:
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/On-Screen%20Keyboard%20Portable/

    2) Use the on-screen keyboard on Windows 10 when enabling the tablet mode compatibility. With this setting, Windows 10 will show the keyboard when an input field is selected, such as a tablet or smartphone.

    3) Another good option can be to use a Cicode Keyboard you can download here:
    https://softwareforums.aveva.com/citect_community/cit-toolbox/f/187/t/25147
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