Virtual Keyboard for Google Chrome™ (Fork)

About

Virtual Keyboard for Google Chrome™ will popup automatically when the user clicks on an input field such as textboxes and textareas. Furthermore, the keyboard will disappear automatically once no longer needed.

This extension is ideal for touch screen devices. This keyboard works like an iOS/Android/Windows 8 touch virtual keyboard.

Features

Input Features

• Cursor Positioning - Type anywhere in a field, not just at the end
• Spacebar Cursor Swipe - Drag on the spacebar to move the cursor left/right
• Auto-Capitalize - Automatically capitalize the first letter after sentence punctuation (. ? !), Enter, or when the keyboard opens
• Sticky Shift - Shift key stays on until pressed again (optional)
• Key Repeat - Hold backspace to continuously delete characters, with configurable delay and speed
• .com Button - Quick-insert ".com" when typing in email fields or the URL bar

Voice Input (Speech-to-Text)

• Offline Voice Recognition - Uses Whisper AI running locally in your browser (no data sent to servers)
• Multiple Model Sizes - Choose from Tiny, Base, or Small models in quantized or full precision
• Language Support - English-only mode for faster recognition, or multilingual auto-detection

Display Options

• Adjustable Size - Scale keyboard width and height independently (25-150%)
• Draggable Keyboard - Reposition the keyboard anywhere on screen
• Number Row - Optional dedicated number row above the main keyboard
• Customizable Buttons - Show/hide: open button, language switcher, settings, URL button, close button, numbers toggle
• Autostart Mode - Keyboard opens automatically when pages load

Keyboard Layouts

15 language layouts available: English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Magyar, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Czech, and Ukrainian.

Fork Differences

This is a fork of the original Virtual Keyboard extension with the following improvements:

• Manifest V3 Migration - Updated from Manifest V2 to V3 for continued Chrome Web Store compatibility
• role="textbox" Support - The keyboard now activates on elements with role="textbox" in addition to standard input fields (useful for custom form components and accessibility)
• Improved iframe Support - Better handling of keyboard in same-origin iframe scenarios
• Efficient DOM Monitoring - Replaced inefficient polling (scanning entire DOM every second) with MutationObserver for detecting new input fields. This uses zero CPU when the page is idle and responds instantly to dynamically added inputs
• Voice Input - Offline speech-to-text using Whisper AI
• Auto-Capitalize - Smart capitalization after sentences and on keyboard open
• Key Repeat - Configurable hold-to-repeat for backspace
• Spacebar Cursor Swipe - Drag spacebar to move cursor

All features from the original extension are preserved.

Permissions

This extension requires the following permissions:

Permission	Why It's Needed
storage	Saves your keyboard layout preference so it persists between browser sessions
activeTab	Allows the extension to interact with the current tab when you click the extension icon

The content script is configured to run on all pages (<all_urls>) to detect when you focus on input fields and display the keyboard.

Development

pnpm install          # Install dependencies
pnpm build            # Build extension to dist/
pnpm watch            # Build and watch for changes
pnpm format           # Format code with Biome
pnpm lint             # Lint code with Biome
pnpm lint:fix         # Fix lint issues automatically
pnpm package          # Create zip for Chrome Web Store submission

Extension source files are in the src/ directory.

Testing

The project has both unit tests (Vitest) and E2E tests (Playwright).

# Setup
pnpm test:install     # Install Playwright browser (first time)

# Run tests
pnpm test             # Run all tests (unit + E2E)
pnpm test:unit        # Run unit tests only
pnpm test:e2e         # Run E2E tests only
pnpm test:headed      # Run E2E tests with visible browser
pnpm test:ui          # Run E2E tests with Playwright UI
pnpm test:debug       # Run E2E tests in debug mode
pnpm test:report      # View Playwright test report

Coverage

Coverage can be generated for unit tests, E2E tests, or combined.

pnpm coverage         # Run all tests with combined coverage report
pnpm coverage:unit    # Run unit tests with coverage
pnpm coverage:e2e     # Run E2E tests with coverage
pnpm coverage:all     # Generate combined coverage (unit + E2E)
pnpm coverage:summary # Display coverage summary for all test types

Coverage reports are generated in:

• coverage/ - Combined coverage report (HTML)
• coverage-unit/ - Unit test coverage
• coverage-e2e/ - E2E test coverage

Known Limitations

Due to security reasons, communication between frames is restricted in Google Chrome. The only way to enable the keyboard in cross-origin iFrame scenarios is to disable web security using flags --disable-web-security --disable-site-isolation-trials --user-data-dir=/tmp. Warning: these flags make Chrome very vulnerable and should only be used for testing.