Can on-screen keyboard be setup like the one on my Android phone?

[JoeSchmoe007]

On my Android phone whenever field that requires text entry receives focus the on-screen keyboard pops up automatically.

Can keyboard on Surface pro be configured the same way so that I don't have to activate it explicitly each time?

 

[rockstarzzz]

Nope.

 

[toddpart]

Except for stuff on the 'Desktop' side of the house that's exactly how it works. For everything in 'tablet/Metro' world it will pop up automatically when focused on a field that accepts input.

 

[zwuncki]

So there's no tweak for desktop mode?

It's totally annoying always having to tab the keyboard symbol to get the keyboard...

 

[jhoff80]

Touching a field actually used to pop up an icon automatically next to each text entry field in Windows 7. (Well, this worked most of the time. In certain apps like Chrome and Firefox, it was pretty buggy.)

Microsoft instead changed Windows 8 to give an explicit API for desktop programs to pop up a keyboard automatically. This is why Office apps still pop it up automatically. The problem is that none of the desktop apps have implemented this, so you have to manually tap the icon on the taskbar every time.