Maliit is an

input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...

framework for computers with particular focus on implementing

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the Input device, input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual Computer keyboard, keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also ...

s. Designed mostly for

touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...

devices, Maliit allows the inputting of text without the presence of a physical keyboard. More advanced features such as word correction and prediction are also available. Originating as part of

MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in ...

, Maliit is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

licensed under

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

. Maliit ships as a standard component of

LG webOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...

Plasma Mobile Plasma Mobile is a Plasma variant for smartphones. It is currently available for the Pinephone, and supported devices for postmarketOS such as the OnePlus 6. It is shipped by several Linux distributions, such as postmarketOS and Manjaro. Hist ...

, SailfishOS,

LuneOS LuneOS is a mobile operating system (OS) based on the Linux kernel and currently developed by WebOS Ports community. With a user interface based on direct manipulation, LuneOS is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphon ...

, and

Ubuntu Touch Ubuntu Touch is a mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system, being developed by the UBports community. Its user interface is written in Qt, and is designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, ...

History

Maliit was originally developed as part of MeeGo by

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

who eventually shipped it as part of MeeGo Handset “Day 1” software platform. In the early

2010s File:2010s collage v21.png, From top left, clockwise: Anti-government protests called the Arab Spring arose in 2010–2011, and as a result, many governments were overthrown, including when Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was Death of Muammar Gadd ...

, Maliit was deployed as a standard component of

Nokia N9 The Nokia N9 (codename '' Lankku'') is a flagship smartphone developed by Nokia, running on the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system. Announced in June 2011 and released in September, it was the first and only device from Nokia with MeeGo, ...

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

Plasma Active KDE Plasma 4 was the fourth generation of the KDE workspace environments. It consisted of three workspaces, each targeting a certain platform: ''Plasma Desktop'' for traditional desktop PCs and notebooks, ''Plasma Netbook'' for netbooks, and ''Pl ...

, OLPC devices, and

phones. After the MeeGo project ended, Maliit was transferred into an independent project by free software consulting firm

Openismus Openismus was a small company with limited liability, based in Berlin and Munich, with a focus on Open Source technologies. It is known for contributions to the GNOME project (through gtkmm, GTK+ and Glade) and to the Maemo and MeeGo platforms ...

. The first formally independent release was 0.80.0 on . Maliit 0.99, released on , switched from Qt 4 to Qt 5. In May 2016, a KDE developer announced that instead of Maliit, QtVirtualKeyboard had been integrated into KDE Plasma 5.7. In September 2020, Maliit was made the default keyboard in Plasma Mobile. On Maliit 2.0 has been released.

Features

Among Maliit's features are a plugin-based architecture, word correction and prediction, multitouch, and context sensitive layouts. When running on Linux kernel, handling of the input hardware relies on

evdev evdev (short for 'event device') is a generic input event interface in the Linux kernel and FreeBSD. It generalizes raw input events from device drivers and makes them available through character devices in the /dev/input/ directory. The user- ...

. Maliit supports

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

as well as Wayland.

External links

References

{{Nokia services Input methods Nokia services Mobile Linux Free mobile software Free software programmed in C++

History

Features

See also

External links

References