On a mobile device, the Horizon Client Tools include buttons for displaying the onscreen keyboard, virtual touchpad, configuration settings, and a virtual keypad for arrow keys and function keys.

The Horizon Client Tools radial menu icon appears in the middle of the window when you are connected to a remote desktop or published application. Tap to expand the radial menu and display icons for each tool, which you can tap to select. Tap outside the tool icons to collapse the icons back into the radial menu icon.

The radial menu includes several tools.

Table 1. Radial Menu Icons
Icon Description
A screenshot of the radial menu icon. Horizon Client Tools radial menu
Disconnect icon. Disconnect
Keyboard icon. Onscreen keyboard (toggles to show or hide)
Settings icon. Settings
Navigation keys icon. Navigation keys
Touchpad icon. Virtual touchpad
Gesture help icon. Gesture help

Onscreen Keyboard

The onscreen keyboard has more keys than the standard onscreen keyboard, for example, Control keys and function keys are available. To display the onscreen keyboard, tap the screen with three fingers at the same time or tap the Keyboard icon.

You can also use the feature that displays the onscreen keyboard whenever you tap a text field, such as in a note or new contact. If you then tap in an area that is not a text field, the keyboard is dismissed.

Important: To use the three-finger tap, make sure the iOS accessibility feature for zooming is turned off. When the zoom accessibility feature is turned on, you zoom by double-tapping with three fingers, and tapping once with three fingers does nothing.

Even if you use an external keyboard, a one-row onscreen keyboard might still appear, which contains function keys, and the Ctrl, Alt, Win, and arrow keys. Some external keyboards do not have all these keys.

Sending a String of Characters

From the onscreen keyboard, tap the pen icon on the left side of the Ctrl key to display the local input buffer. Text that you type into this text box is not sent to an application until you tap Send. For example, if you open an application such as Notepad and tap the pen icon, the text that you type does not appear in the Notepad application until you tap Send.

Use this feature if you have a poor network connection. That is, use this feature if, when you type a character, the character does not immediately appear in the application. With this feature, you can quickly type up to 1,000 characters and then either tap Send or tap Return to have all 1,000 characters appear at once in the application.

Navigation Keys

Tap the Ctrl/Page icon in the Horizon Client Tools or onscreen keyboard to display the navigation keys. These keys include Page Up, Page Down, arrow keys, function keys, and other keys that you often use in Windows environments, such as Alt, Del, Shift, Ctrl, Win, and Esc. You can press and hold arrow keys for continuous key strokes. For a picture of the Ctrl/Page icon, see the table at the beginning of this topic.

Use the Shift key on this keypad when you need to use key combinations that include the Shift key, such as Ctrl+Shift. To tap a combination of these keys, such as Ctrl+Alt+Shift, first tap the onscreen Ctrl key. After the Ctrl key turns blue, tap the onscreen Alt key. After the Alt key turns blue, tap the onscreen Shift key. A single onscreen key is provided for the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Onscreen Touchpad and Full-Screen Touchpad

The virtual touchpad can be either regular-size, to resemble a touchpad on a laptop computer, or full screen, so that the entire device screen is a touchpad.

By default, when you tap the touchpad icon, you can touch anywhere on the screen to move the mouse pointer. The screen becomes a full-screen touchpad.

  • Moving your finger around the touchpad creates a mouse pointer that moves around the remote desktop or published application.
  • You can use the regular-size and full-screen virtual touchpad for single-clicking and double-clicking.
  • The regular touchpad also contains left-click and right-click buttons.
  • To simulate holding down the left-click button while dragging, double-tap with one finger and then drag.

    To enable this feature, use the Horizon Client Tools to display the Options dialog box, and click to toggle the Touchpad Tap & Drag option to on.

  • You can tap with two fingers and then drag to scroll vertically.

You can drag the regular-size virtual touchpad to the side of the device so that you can use your thumb to operate the touchpad while you are holding the device.

You can make the virtual touchpad resemble the touchpad on a laptop, including right-click and left-click buttons. Tap to expand the Horizon Client Tools radial menu icon, tap the Settings (gear) icon, tap Touch, and toggle the Full Screen Touchpad Mode setting to off.

To adjust how quickly the pointer moves when you use the touchpad, tap to expand the Horizon Client Tools radial menu icon, tap the Settings (gear) icon, tap Touch, and drag the slider in the Touchpad Sensitivity option.

You can also set the Full Screen Touchpad Mode and Touchpad Sensitivity settings from the Horizon Client Settings window. Tap Settings at the bottom of the Horizon Client window and tap Touch to display the touchpad settings.

If you are logged in to a remote desktop or published application when you change the touchpad settings, your touchpad settings are retained the next time you connect to the remote desktop or published application from the same iOS device.