On-Screen Virtual Keyboard is a Go for Mere Mortals, Here's How To Install It

Eric Gaudet and the WebOS Internals crew have done awesome work on the Virtual Keyboard for the Palm Pre and also provided instructions on how to install it in our forums (which have already made the rounds). The folks from WebOS internals and preware.org wanted to make things a little easier. They have an app installer called Preware that is able, as of last night, to safely install (and remove) patches. The first patch they've made available is the keyboard.

The keyboard works passably well, but it's definitely got a kink or two that needs working out (symbols aren't working for me yet). You can see it in operation above [direct YouTube Link for Pre users] - just double-tap the gesture area to toggle it whenever you have a cursor on the screen.

Update: Gaudet schools me on how the keyboard works: "the symbols unlock the scroller. He has to scroll the keyboard to see the symbols below it when the sym lock is on." 

After the break we'll tell you how to get it done. We said in the title that it was possible for mere mortals and that's true, but we still need to caution you that you're applying a patch and so things can get dicey and you will need to ensure you've uninstalled the patch before any webOS update.

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