I need to create a rich text editing control for my application. (Rich text allows for formatting using different, colors, etc.)
My current, and very experimental, solution uses a gadget. This gadget draws the richly formatted text, displays the insertion point and responds to pen and key events. I hacked this together in an hour purely to prototype the solution, but it works well enough and it looks like I'm on the right track. However, the problem with this solution is that the gadget does not interact with the on-screen keyboard because it is not a proper text field.
Now I see that WordSmith interacts properly with the on-screen keyboard. It displays its text, richly formatted and all, in the keyboard dialog, which functions as it should. (Another app I've tried, Mobile Word, displays a custom keyboard. I don't want to go that route.)
So is it possible to customize the standard keyboard dialog so that it displays your gadget data?
No, not really. The keyboard code just grabs the active field and edits it in place. If you wanted to be tricky on pre-Palm OS 5 devices, you could patch out DmGetResource and substitute a different keyboard layout resource, but that doesn't help you with your rich text editing UI.
The API docs only mention that you can create a custom keyboard dialog.
Since it's your app, you can do whatever you want :) 3rd parties doing hacks typically patch the keyboard traps or (on Palm OS 5) handle the keyboard notification. But for your case it sounds like you'd have to create your own keyboard form.
-- Ken -- Ken Krugler TransPac Software, Inc. <http://www.transpac.com> +1 530-470-9200
-- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
