Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Onboard on-screen keyboard VS WinCompose

Compare Onboard on-screen keyboard VS WinCompose and see what are their differences

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Onboard on-screen keyboard logo Onboard on-screen keyboard

An onscreen keyboard useful for tablet PC users and for mobility impaired users.

WinCompose logo WinCompose

WinCompose supports the standard Compose file format.
  • Onboard on-screen keyboard Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-13
  • WinCompose Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-13

Onboard on-screen keyboard features and specs

  • Accessibility
    Onboard provides an essential accessibility feature for users with physical disabilities, allowing them to input text without a physical keyboard.
  • Customizability
    The on-screen keyboard offers a high degree of customizability with options to change layout, size, theme, and key labels to suit different user preferences.
  • Integration
    Onboard integrates well with the Ubuntu desktop environment and other distributions, ensuring smooth usage alongside other system tools.
  • Ease of Use
    It is designed to be user-friendly, with intuitive settings and simple instructions, making it easy for non-technical users to operate.
  • Predictive Text
    Includes a predictive text feature that suggests words as you type, improving typing efficiency and speed.

Possible disadvantages of Onboard on-screen keyboard

  • Resource Usage
    Due to its graphical nature, Onboard can consume more system resources than a physical keyboard, which may affect performance on older or less powerful machines.
  • Screen Space
    Taking up part of the screen can be inconvenient, especially on smaller displays, reducing the available space for other applications.
  • Limited Features Compared to Physical Keyboards
    While Onboard offers basic keyboard functionality, it lacks some features and tactile feedback that physical keyboards offer, potentially hampering prolonged use.
  • Dependency on Pointer Device
    Relying heavily on mouse or touchpad input can be a limitation for users with difficulties using these devices, potentially necessitating additional accessibility tools.
  • Potential Compatibility Issues
    While generally well-integrated with Ubuntu, there might be occasional compatibility issues with other software, especially non-mainstream applications.

WinCompose features and specs

  • Customizability
    WinCompose allows users to customize their own compose sequences, providing flexibility to create characters and symbols that are not predefined.
  • Wide Character Support
    The application supports thousands of Unicode characters, enabling the input of a diverse range of symbols and special characters that are otherwise hard to type.
  • Free and Open Source
    WinCompose is open-source software, allowing users to freely use, study, modify, and distribute the software, which encourages community involvement and transparency.
  • Lightweight
    The software is lightweight and does not consume significant system resources, making it suitable for regular use without impacting system performance.

Possible disadvantages of WinCompose

  • Learning Curve
    New users might experience a learning curve while getting accustomed to various compose key sequences, especially if they are unfamiliar with compose keys in general.
  • Windows Only
    WinCompose is specifically designed for Windows operating systems, limiting its usability for those using other platforms such as macOS or Linux without additional configurations like Wine.
  • Potential Software Conflicts
    Users might encounter conflicts with other software that uses similar keyboard shortcuts or compose keys, potentially leading to unexpected behavior.
  • Limited Support
    As a community-driven project, WinCompose might not offer the same level of dedicated support or documentation as commercial software, which might pose challenges for troubleshooting.

Analysis of WinCompose

Overall verdict

  • WinCompose is a highly regarded tool for typing special characters on Windows. It's praised for its simplicity, efficiency, and customization options. For anyone needing to access a wide range of characters beyond those available in their standard keyboard setup, WinCompose is an excellent choice.

Why this product is good

  • WinCompose is considered a good tool because it simplifies typing special characters by using simple key combinations. It is especially useful for users who frequently require non-standard characters that are not easily accessible from a typical keyboard layout. The software is lightweight, easy to use, and highly customizable, allowing users to create their own key combinations.

Recommended for

    WinCompose is recommended for writers, developers, translators, and anyone who frequently needs to input special characters and symbols. It's particularly useful for users working with multiple languages or those in fields requiring extensive use of non-standard notation.

Onboard on-screen keyboard videos

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WinCompose videos

Working with WinCompose

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Onboard on-screen keyboard and WinCompose)
Ruby Web Framework
100 100%
0% 0
Character Maps
0 0%
100% 100
Web Frameworks
100 100%
0% 0
Fonts
10 10%
90% 90

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, WinCompose seems to be a lot more popular than Onboard on-screen keyboard. While we know about 46 links to WinCompose, we've tracked only 4 mentions of Onboard on-screen keyboard. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Onboard on-screen keyboard mentions (4)

  • Korean (Hangul) on-screen virtual keyboard for Linux.
    With the archaic xvkbd, layout switcher didn't work for me. I also found some custom layouts for onboard, but was unable to download/use them. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Steam Deck - Steam Deck Client Update: Notifications and Input fixes - Steam News
    Https://launchpad.net/onboard is exclusively what I use in desktop mode. Pinned it to my favorites. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Onboard virtual keyboard switches layout while writing
    Report the bug here https://launchpad.net/onboard. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Challenge: Use KDE Plasma ONLY With Touchscreen
    Do you mean this one: https://launchpad.net/onboard? What do you like more about it in comparison to Maliit? Source: over 3 years ago

WinCompose mentions (46)

  • How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
    What I've been using: Install https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose and you can then press AltGr then three hyphens to insert one. Or if you're on Linux just search for "compose key". - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Victor Mono Typeface
    Julia has made symbol input manageable and lets you define infix operators for many of the Unicode symbols that make sense for that. [1] And JuliaMono was designed to support the symbols that Julia does. [2] I generally do quite fine with my Compose Key configuration, though (even on Windows, where I use WinCompose). [3] [1]: https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/unicode-input/ [2]:... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • bach - a tool for searching compose sequences
    Credit to wincompose's GUI for inspiration, which provides similar functionality on Windows. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Client got a ridiculous IRS notice and an erroneous refund
    Or if you're on Linux or using WinCompose, you can hit Compose + s + o. Source: about 2 years ago
  • How to insert special characters?
    I really like using the idea of the compose key (although I do use digraphs, as mentioned here, once in a while). A compose key will work outside of Vim, as well. On Gnome, you can use Gnome Tweaks. Other DEs will also support this (internet search!). If you are using a plain window manager on Xorg, then read this. If you are on Windows, install Wincompose. MacOS? Who knows! All work the same way. My compose key... Source: about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Onboard on-screen keyboard and WinCompose, you can also consider the following products

Free Virtual Keyboard - Free Virtual Keyboard is a free, lightweight, multilingual and finger friendly virtual keyboard.

BabelMap - Unicode Character Map for Windows

AnySoftKeyboard - Android (f/w 1.5+) on-screen keyboard for multiple languages.

PopChar - It has never been easier to find and insert special characters.

Florence Virtual Keyboard - Florence is an extensible scalable virtual keyboard for GNOME.

SymbSearch - A tool for searching unicode-symbols and copying it to the clipboard.