Showing a better onscreen keyboard on MacOS

Solution 1:

Which onscreen keyboard are we talking about? If you check Accessibility / keyboard / Viewer, there's a button Panel Editor..., and the ellipsis is both strange and somewhat fitting, because it's a whole new world hiding behind it.

The screenshot shows the editor (top), the keyboard in use (bottom), and the Accessibility preferences where it can be accessed.

I dragged a JIS (large) keyboard into service, added a custom YOUR KEY HERE! at an unfortunate location, and a word completion bar (useful, considering bars usually impair my word finding skills).

There are prefab layouts and panels for most any need, and it allows customisation for individual applications.

It's slightly ugly, yes. I guess that's the fate of Apple keyboards both real and virtual: they get flat and dark.