Windows 10 Keyboard: Possible upgrade for Microsoft Touch Keyboard

The Microsoft Touch Keyboard already has a qwerty keyboard (with different layouts) and pen input keyboard that can float or dock. However, there is yet no provision for a virtual mouse and no ability to adjust the keyboard height.

After using Windows OS for more than ten years, I have found that the natural design of the OS makes the cursor input more natural than touch, hence it will still be of great benefit if users without a physical keyboard could have the goodness of such tool (on screen mouse) to enhance their productivity.

This work considers these gaps and tries to proffer solutions while also presenting some tweaks that could make the soft keyboard more user-friendly. In order to achieve these, Microsoft should upgrade the current Touch keyboard to have:

1.       Qwerty keyboard (already available)
2.       Handwriting panel (already available)
3.       Mouse pad
4.       Option for adjusting the height of the keyboard.

These are highlighted using the following pictures (Figures 1 -5).

Fig. 1

Provision should be made for a mouse pad as shown in Fig. 1.

From the Mouse pad, the user should have a quick way of accessing other major important modes of the keyboards. These include.

1.     Handwriting panel
2.      Qwerty keyboard
3.      Docked to the side flipped 90° (left or right)
4.      Delete button

Fig. 2

From (any of the) qwerty keyboard layouts, the user should have a quick way of accessing other major important modes of the keyboards. These include

1.       Mouse pad
2.       Handwriting panel

Fig. 3

From the Handwriting panel, the user should have a quick way of accessing other major important modes of the keyboards. These include

1.       Mouse pad
2.       Qwerty keyboard
3.       Freeze/Pin Expandable layout as depicted in Figure 4

Fig. 4

There should be an option for freezing the expandable functions in the handwriting keyboard. This option will be of great help for someone that uses pen for typing long and many passages.

Fig. 5

Provision should be made for varying the height of the keyboard with respect to the original height (50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%)

I wish to also advise that:

1.     The touch keyboard be separated from the Windows OS and turned into a stand-alone application that will be pre-installed into the OS and can be downloaded from the Store. This will ensure that the application can be updated from time to time to bring in new features.

2.     It will also be nice if the floating keyboard (especially the handwriting keyboard) can be aligned/rotated through +-90°. This will be very useful for users of those systems with a physical keyboard that wish to type with pen on the handwriting keyboard. 

3.     The Delete button should be added to the handwriting keyboard.

#Virtual keyboard

#Pen input keyboard

#Mouse

#Microsoft
#Windows 10 2004

#Microsoft Windows Store