How can I make Onboard, the visual keyboard, open in Ubuntu on startup?

Question

I am working with an application using a touch screen. For this, I need Onboard (the on-screen keyboard) to open from Ubuntu's startup time with a fixed width and height. I also need to get a reserved screen position for placing Onboard (which means that Onboard should not be in front of any application windows). I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Onboard was not installed in my system. I installed it by typing sudo apt-get install onboard in the terminal. It doesn't work properly. Now the system shows Onboard when I type onboard in the terminal. Onboard closes itself when I close the terminal.

Answer 1

Open Gedit and type:

#!/bin/bash
# you can change the size of the window below (1000x300)
onboard -s 1000x300

Now save this file somewhere as filename.sh and open a terminal window. Navigate to this file location by using:

cd /home/user/blah/blah/../filename.sh

When you get there type in

sudo chmod a+x 'filename.sh'

(quotes are there for avoiding space character problems). Now you've made it an executable bash script. Open 'gnome-session-properties' from terminal and click on Add.

Name: Onboard
Command: "Browse to the file location"
Comment: Onboard on startup

Click add and you're done! Logout and login to see if it worked.

Answer 2

To auto start Onboard, go to Universal Access and select Typing, then turn On Screen Keyboard on.