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Behavior and guidance

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The states of the two indicators available (mode and docking) play an important role in determining the user experience around touch keyboard and screen auto-rotation.

When you determine the modes that are to be reported for the indicators, consider the scenarios and behaviors that are described in Table 1 Expected Behaviors.

Table 1 Expected Behaviors

Mode indicator Dock indicator On screen keyboard displayed Auto-rotation enabled
Laptop Undocked No No
Laptop Docked No No
Slate Undocked Yes Yes
Slate Docked Yes No

When the system is in slate mode:

  • Touch screen keyboard is auto-invoked
  • Rotation lock is unlocked (unless previously locked by the user)
  • Rotation lock can be toggled
  • Display can freely rotate

When the system is in laptop mode:

  • Touch screen keyboard is suppressed
  • Rotation is set to landscape and locked
  • Rotation lock cannot be toggled
  • Display cannot freely rotate

To match this behavior, the mode and dock indicators must be implemented according to the guidance that is described in Table 2 Implementation Guidance.

Table 2 Implementation Guidance

Indicator State Implementation guidance
Mode Laptop Report laptop if a keyboard is attached and comfortably accessible to the user. (For convertibles, the system can be in clamshell or equivalent mode from a keyboard accessibility perspective.)
Mode Slate Report slate if the physical keyboard is not available to the user. (This includes the case where they don’t have complete access or they can’t type comfortably.)
Dock Docked Report Dock if the system is stationary (attached to a docking system or a port replicator). Stand-alone AC power supply does not apply as long as the system can be freely moved.
Dock Undocked Report undocked if the system is not stationary. This applies to the case of having the device connected to general power supply because it can still be freely moved. A power supply is not mandatory for reporting undocked. This is the natural state of any system when it is not connected to a port replicator or docking solution.