Android Emulator Keyboard not displaying

Question

Just installed the android sdk on my macbook pro. I created a virtual device, allotted 50mb worth of memory in android 3.0. I ran the emulator, and Android_ displays on the

Answer 1

yes, ctrl+f11 and num-7 bring up the soft keyboard. useful, but not as convenient for testing as the old side/emulator keyboard.

In the Android 3.0 SDK using v11 or higher a side-keyboard is apparently no longer available by default, presumably to better emulate that the devices are all touch-screens. An AVD based on the default WVGA800 tablet skin and any AVD based on a custom screen size will not have a side emulator keyboard for you to use, and I couldn't find which setting might turn it on. However...

I was able to get a side-keyboard (very very handy for dev+testing) by downloading some older skins from http://teavuihuang.com/android/ and creating AVDs based on these. Somehow this enables the emulator keyboard, through some file or setting which the AVD editor doesn't make available. The window sizes and emulator keyboard placement don't exactly line up, but it beats the heck out of nothing.

Seems like Google should have documented all of these intricacies at http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/devices/emulator.html, but they haven't.