Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-30 Thread Bert Freudenberg 

On 30.06.2010, at 07:28, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 4:48 AM, C. Scott Ananian  wrote:
>> Do all of firefox/xulrunner/chrome use GTK widgets for text entry?
>> I'm nervous that some programs might not pop up the keyboard
>> appropriately.
> 
> Yes - it would be difficult to detect things in webkit/xulrunner. Also
> it won't work for Scratch or Etoys. I think for such cases, having a
> dbus service from sugar to show/hide the keyboard may be a good idea
> (at least some activities may be able to take advantage of it)

Yes, dbus should work well for Etoys.

- Bert -


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-30 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 4:48 AM, C. Scott Ananian  wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  
> wrote:
>>> - Ideally something (Gnome I assume?) should trigger the keyboard overlay 
>>> when you focus on a text field, perhaps with some hints about what the 
>>> 'return' key behaviour should do (or expose a tab key as that is usually 
>>> the other common text field navigation method). Dismissing the keyboard 
>>> overlay when a text field is defocused would also be ideal.
>>
>> AFAIK, this requires a GTK+ module to be loaded. I'm still trying to
>> write a proof of concept implementation of this - it seems that
>> there's no documentation anywhere for writing GTK+ modules :-(
>
> Yeah, I gave up and just used LD_PRELOAD when I had this problem.  If
> you want to try the quick-and-dirty way for a proof of concept, this
> might be handy:
>  http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/journal2/tree/
>
> Do all of firefox/xulrunner/chrome use GTK widgets for text entry?
> I'm nervous that some programs might not pop up the keyboard
> appropriately.
>

Yes - it would be difficult to detect things in webkit/xulrunner. Also
it won't work for Scratch or Etoys. I think for such cases, having a
dbus service from sugar to show/hide the keyboard may be a good idea
(at least some activities may be able to take advantage of it)

> You could add a gesture to force the keyboard up even for badly
> behaved applications.  I think the iPad/iPhone gesture for that is
> dragging your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top.

Sounds like a good idea.
Thanks!
Sayamindu


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-29 Thread Gary Martin 
On 30 Jun 2010, at 00:18, "C. Scott Ananian"  wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  
> wrote:
>>> - Ideally something (Gnome I assume?) should trigger the keyboard overlay 
>>> when you focus on a text field, perhaps with some hints about what the 
>>> 'return' key behaviour should do (or expose a tab key as that is usually 
>>> the other common text field navigation method). Dismissing the keyboard 
>>> overlay when a text field is defocused would also be ideal.
>> 
>> AFAIK, this requires a GTK+ module to be loaded. I'm still trying to
>> write a proof of concept implementation of this - it seems that
>> there's no documentation anywhere for writing GTK+ modules :-(
> 
> Yeah, I gave up and just used LD_PRELOAD when I had this problem.  If
> you want to try the quick-and-dirty way for a proof of concept, this
> might be handy:
>  http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/journal2/tree/
> 
> Do all of firefox/xulrunner/chrome use GTK widgets for text entry?
> I'm nervous that some programs might not pop up the keyboard
> appropriately.
> 
> You could add a gesture to force the keyboard up even for badly
> behaved applications.  I think the iPad/iPhone gesture for that is
> dragging your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top.

FWIW: There is no global system gesture or button on the iPad for revealing the 
virtual keyboard. Selecting any text widget will reveal it; app developers can 
programatically reveal it (say if they have a custom canvas, our Labyrinth 
activity would fall in this category); a few individual apps from 3rd parties 
(none I can see from Apple) have added their own floating semi transparent 
keyboard icon usually in the far lower right screen corner, in one case (a text 
chat app) this just seems like poor design, in the others I can remember it's 
for cases where there is no sane way to know if the keyboard is needed (VNC, 
RDP clients).

There are no keyboard only iOS devices, and all app developers knew from day 1 
that devices were touch only, so we are in a slightly different position with 
needing to support both key and keyless devices, and activities that were 
written without touch input in mind... So I'm sure we will need a fallback 
button. Sayamindu device frame seems a good choice, once we have a touch 
gesture to reveal the frame that is ;)   

Anyone know what the planned physical buttons may be for the XO-3? If Sugar was 
native on iPad hardware, I'd certainly want the single home button to reveal 
the frame, with perhaps a double click of it switching to the Sugar favourites 
ring view.

Regards,
--Gary 

>  --scott
> 
> -- 
> ( http://cscott.net/ )
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-29 Thread C. Scott Ananian 
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  wrote:
>> - Ideally something (Gnome I assume?) should trigger the keyboard overlay 
>> when you focus on a text field, perhaps with some hints about what the 
>> 'return' key behaviour should do (or expose a tab key as that is usually the 
>> other common text field navigation method). Dismissing the keyboard overlay 
>> when a text field is defocused would also be ideal.
>
> AFAIK, this requires a GTK+ module to be loaded. I'm still trying to
> write a proof of concept implementation of this - it seems that
> there's no documentation anywhere for writing GTK+ modules :-(

Yeah, I gave up and just used LD_PRELOAD when I had this problem.  If
you want to try the quick-and-dirty way for a proof of concept, this
might be handy:
  http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/cscott/journal2/tree/

Do all of firefox/xulrunner/chrome use GTK widgets for text entry?
I'm nervous that some programs might not pop up the keyboard
appropriately.

You could add a gesture to force the keyboard up even for badly
behaved applications.  I think the iPad/iPhone gesture for that is
dragging your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top.
  --scott

-- 
 ( http://cscott.net/ )
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-29 Thread Gary Martin 
Hi Sayamindu,

On 29 Jun 2010, at 22:25, Sayamindu Dasgupta  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 1:58 AM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  
> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Gary Martin  
>> wrote:
>>> Hi Sayamindu,
>>> 
>>> On 17 Jun 2010, at 13:16, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
>>> 
 [Apologies for the cross-posting]
 
 Hello,
 Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
 FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
 A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
 layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
 etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
 key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
 back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
 I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
 keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
 switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
 the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
 have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
 it from 
 http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso
>>> 
>>> Wow, big thanks for launching into this. For anyone not sure how to try the 
>>> iso, I'm on a Mac and just used Virtual Box to create a new empty Fedora 
>>> VM, no HD, and just point to the iso as the boot CD. Started up just fine, 
>>> keyboard is already open to type in your user name (of course this is all 
>>> read only, any changes you make will be gone after a reboot).
>>> 
>> 
> 
> <...snip>
> 
>>> 
>>> Sayamindu, what kind'a feedback/assistance would be most useful? Is it too 
>>> soon to start collating notes and screen shots on a wiki page somewhere?
>> 
>> Yes - I think we should start putting all of this in a wiki.
>> 
> 
> I have put in some of my thoughts and ideas into the wiki :
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Onscreen_Keyboard

Thanks, that's a good set of notes. I'll add some of my scrawl to the talk page.

FWIW: My iPad testing using RDP has only been partially successful so far. Have 
been using the iTap RDP client to connect to the Virtual Box built in RDP 
support:

Pros: Pretty fast for a remote session; no redraw or graphics issues; can run 
the VM headless from the host; sound is remotely relayed (half second delay so 
not too great for UI feedback testing); uses 100% fullscreen so a 1024x768 
Sugar VM looks great on an iPad (iTap uses three finger gestures to invoke its 
local onscreen controls so you can pretend they don't exist).

Cons: Mouse cursor for clicks are not aligned correctly most of the time (still 
trying to track this issue down, may be client vs. host pointer related); due 
to the cursor alignment issues you need to invoke a hold gesture to drag the 
visible cursor to where you want to make a click (slow and defeats the goal of 
touch screen testing); iPad main virtual keyboard not correctly communicating 
with the VM (all the custom iTap keys work, esc, function keys, ctrl, alt, 
cursors etc, but the main keyboard letters do not get through) — which makes 
using your fvkbd image a must have ;)   

Regards,
--Gary

> Thanks,
> Sayamindu
> 
> -- 
> Sayamindu Dasgupta
> [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-29 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 1:58 AM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Gary Martin  
> wrote:
>> Hi Sayamindu,
>>
>> On 17 Jun 2010, at 13:16, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
>>
>>> [Apologies for the cross-posting]
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>> Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
>>> FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
>>> A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
>>> layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
>>> etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
>>> key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
>>> back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
>>> I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
>>> keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
>>> switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
>>> the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
>>> have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
>>> it from http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso
>>
>> Wow, big thanks for launching into this. For anyone not sure how to try the 
>> iso, I'm on a Mac and just used Virtual Box to create a new empty Fedora VM, 
>> no HD, and just point to the iso as the boot CD. Started up just fine, 
>> keyboard is already open to type in your user name (of course this is all 
>> read only, any changes you make will be gone after a reboot).
>>
>

<...snip>

>>
>> Sayamindu, what kind'a feedback/assistance would be most useful? Is it too 
>> soon to start collating notes and screen shots on a wiki page somewhere?
>
> Yes - I think we should start putting all of this in a wiki.
>

I have put in some of my thoughts and ideas into the wiki :
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Onscreen_Keyboard

Thanks,
Sayamindu

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-23 Thread Jonas Smedegaard 

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 02:01:52AM +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:

Hi Sayamindu (and others),

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 05:46:43PM +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:


[Apologies for the cross-posting]


Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego 
FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.



Thoughts, feedback, etc would be appreciated :-).


I am not familiar with these details, so just shooting in the dark 
here:


Perhaps looking at (i.e. get interface inspiration or steal code 
from) the alternative virtual keyboard implementation Literki, which 
seems to have happy followers among Debian OpenMoko users:


 http://git.senfdax.de/?p=literki



Thanks for the pointer to this. It seems however that it's written
directly using Xlib, and hence would be unusable for complex scripts
like Arabic, Indic, etc.


Ah, ok.  Too bad.

Personally I never succeeded getting those script engines to work on my 
laptop (and have only esoteric use for them - i.e. suspect them to not 
even be used for cyrillic which is the only non-latin "script" I grasp), 
so wasn't aware of this important issue.



Kind regards,

  - Jonas

--
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-22 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Jonas Smedegaard  wrote:
> Hi Sayamindu (and others),
>
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 05:46:43PM +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
>>
>> [Apologies for the cross-posting]
>
>> Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
>> FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
>
>> Thoughts, feedback, etc would be appreciated :-).
>
> I am not familiar with these details, so just shooting in the dark here:
>
> Perhaps looking at (i.e. get interface inspiration or steal code from) the
> alternative virtual keyboard implementation Literki, which seems to have
> happy followers among Debian OpenMoko users:
>
>  http://git.senfdax.de/?p=literki
>

Thanks for the pointer to this. It seems however that it's written
directly using Xlib, and hence would be unusable for complex scripts
like Arabic, Indic, etc.
Best,
Sayamindu



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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-22 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
Hi Esteban,

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Esteban Arias
 wrote:
> Hi,
> FVKBD support spanish keyboard?
> Could be added an system scanning buttons to write. for example:
> https://desarrollo.ceibal.edu.uy/projects/tecladoenpantalla/files
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Accessibility_virtualkeyboard
> http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/1686
>

I don't think this particular on-screen keyboard is something that you
would use for accessibility stuff (it does not have support for
scanning buttons).
However, I did a Spanish version of the layout - here's a screenshot
of the "Spanish mode"  -
http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-es-onscreen.png
Let me know if you want to test the layout.
Thanks,
Sayamindu


> 2010/6/17 Sayamindu Dasgupta 
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta 
>> wrote:
>> > [Apologies for the cross-posting]
>> >
>> > Hello,
>> > Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
>> > FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
>> > A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
>> > layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
>> > etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
>> > key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
>> > back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
>> > I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
>> > keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
>> > switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
>> > the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
>> > have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
>> > it from
>> > http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso
>>
>> For those who do not want to download the ISO, there's a screencast at
>> http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar_vkbd_multi.ogv
>> Thanks,
>> Sayamindu
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sayamindu Dasgupta
>> [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
>> ___
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>
>
>
> --
>    Esteban Arias
>    Plan Ceibal - Área Técnica
>    Avda. Italia 6201
>    Montevideo - Uruguay.
>    Tel.: 601.57.73 Interno 2228
>    E-mail : ear...@plan.ceibal.edu.uy
>
>



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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-22 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Gary Martin  wrote:
> Hi Sayamindu,
>
> On 17 Jun 2010, at 13:16, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
>
>> [Apologies for the cross-posting]
>>
>> Hello,
>> Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
>> FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
>> A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
>> layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
>> etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
>> key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
>> back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
>> I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
>> keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
>> switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
>> the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
>> have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
>> it from http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso
>
> Wow, big thanks for launching into this. For anyone not sure how to try the 
> iso, I'm on a Mac and just used Virtual Box to create a new empty Fedora VM, 
> no HD, and just point to the iso as the boot CD. Started up just fine, 
> keyboard is already open to type in your user name (of course this is all 
> read only, any changes you make will be gone after a reboot).
>

Thanks for the feedback - this is really helpful :-)

> I'll try and spend some time in the next few days using it via iPad HW and 
> send some feedback, just been playing via mouse so far today.
>
>> Apart from the modified FVKBD, I have added a default keyboard
>> definition file which is for English + Bengali, and I've also included
>> a sugar device-icon on the frame to control the appearance of the
>> keyboard.
>>
>> I realize that more needs to be done to support non Latin scripts, and
>> here are some of the issues I faced while converting the existing XKB
>> Bengali layout:
>>
>> * Many scripts do not have a concept of upper case/lower case - so we
>> need some other script specific way to divide the characters
>> * In the current XKB configurations, non-symbol characters from other
>> scripts are often placed in the position of what normally is symbols
>> for QWERTY keyboards
>> * Numerals pose an interesting problem, since in some places, native
>> numerals/digits are quickly being obsoleted, and latin numerals
>> (1,2,3..) are becoming the de-facto standard. In these cases, it may
>> make sense to provide only _one_ layout/state for numerals, and allow
>> users to input native numerals by hovering (touch + hold) on the
>> virtual key for the latin digit.
>>
>> Among the general issues, I'm not sure how to deal with the keyboard
>> taking up half of the screen real estate - it may be worthwhile to see
>> if we can have a "split screen" sort of configuration while the
>> keyboard is active.
>
> It didn't bother me too much, and this was in an 800x600 session, though 
> ideally we would want the text insertion point to be visible above the 
> keyboard (FWIW various iPad apps have different success in dealing with this, 
> all of Apple's are fine, but it seems 3rd parties do need to do some work on 
> the app side to keep this behaviour working at all times).
>

Transparency is something which comes to mind. Another possibility
might be to make the keyboard move up to the top half of the screen
after a certain point - but that may be too annoying.

>> Thoughts, feedback, etc would be appreciated :-).
>
> Yes, lot's of interesting items to cover :-) I'll try to start to put 
> together a list. Some quick item that struck me right away:
>
> - the Meego keyboard design is clearly for casual typing/text entry, no way 
> of typing commands or many symbols needed for basic programming work – diving 
> into terminal to use vi, or worse emacs, is pretty much a dead end (unless 
> ctrl and alt keys are hidden somewhere I couldn't find). Is it flexible 
> enough to allow different activities to trigger different keyboards (or an 
> extra row of custom keys)? Something like Pippy, or Terminal would need that 
> kind of extra flexibility.

Yes - it can be possible to load an extended layout (with for example,
an extra panel on the top for extra characters). It may be a bit
tricky, but sugar can probably provide an API to do this - and it
would be easier if we can wrap libfvkbd in python or extend the
library to use introspection.

>
> - z layering issues with frame, should it be over, under, part of? Currently 
> it can be a mix depending on the sequence things are triggered.

I suppose the frame should always come on top. I'm not sure how the
window manager would deal with this - the window type of the keyboard
panel is currently set to "dock", which can be changed to a window,
and that may work.

>
> - Ideally something (Gnome I assume?) should trigger the keyboard overl

Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-17 Thread Gary Martin 
Hi Sayamindu,

On 17 Jun 2010, at 13:16, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:

> [Apologies for the cross-posting]
> 
> Hello,
> Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
> FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
> A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
> layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
> etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
> key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
> back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
> I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
> keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
> switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
> the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
> have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
> it from http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso

Wow, big thanks for launching into this. For anyone not sure how to try the 
iso, I'm on a Mac and just used Virtual Box to create a new empty Fedora VM, no 
HD, and just point to the iso as the boot CD. Started up just fine, keyboard is 
already open to type in your user name (of course this is all read only, any 
changes you make will be gone after a reboot).

I'll try and spend some time in the next few days using it via iPad HW and send 
some feedback, just been playing via mouse so far today.

> Apart from the modified FVKBD, I have added a default keyboard
> definition file which is for English + Bengali, and I've also included
> a sugar device-icon on the frame to control the appearance of the
> keyboard.
> 
> I realize that more needs to be done to support non Latin scripts, and
> here are some of the issues I faced while converting the existing XKB
> Bengali layout:
> 
> * Many scripts do not have a concept of upper case/lower case - so we
> need some other script specific way to divide the characters
> * In the current XKB configurations, non-symbol characters from other
> scripts are often placed in the position of what normally is symbols
> for QWERTY keyboards
> * Numerals pose an interesting problem, since in some places, native
> numerals/digits are quickly being obsoleted, and latin numerals
> (1,2,3..) are becoming the de-facto standard. In these cases, it may
> make sense to provide only _one_ layout/state for numerals, and allow
> users to input native numerals by hovering (touch + hold) on the
> virtual key for the latin digit.
> 
> Among the general issues, I'm not sure how to deal with the keyboard
> taking up half of the screen real estate - it may be worthwhile to see
> if we can have a "split screen" sort of configuration while the
> keyboard is active.

It didn't bother me too much, and this was in an 800x600 session, though 
ideally we would want the text insertion point to be visible above the keyboard 
(FWIW various iPad apps have different success in dealing with this, all of 
Apple's are fine, but it seems 3rd parties do need to do some work on the app 
side to keep this behaviour working at all times).

> Thoughts, feedback, etc would be appreciated :-).

Yes, lot's of interesting items to cover :-) I'll try to start to put together 
a list. Some quick item that struck me right away:

- the Meego keyboard design is clearly for casual typing/text entry, no way of 
typing commands or many symbols needed for basic programming work – diving into 
terminal to use vi, or worse emacs, is pretty much a dead end (unless ctrl and 
alt keys are hidden somewhere I couldn't find). Is it flexible enough to allow 
different activities to trigger different keyboards (or an extra row of custom 
keys)? Something like Pippy, or Terminal would need that kind of extra 
flexibility.

- z layering issues with frame, should it be over, under, part of? Currently it 
can be a mix depending on the sequence things are triggered.

- Ideally something (Gnome I assume?) should trigger the keyboard overlay when 
you focus on a text field, perhaps with some hints about what the 'return' key 
behaviour should do (or expose a tab key as that is usually the other common 
text field navigation method). Dismissing the keyboard overlay when a text 
field is defocused would also be ideal.

- The 'grapes' icon particularly (and some others) could do with with some 
sugar-love ;) Do you think those should be upstreamed? Or do we have many other 
unique requirements (enough to fork) that the Meego platform isn't looking to 
support?

OT: one thing I really miss on the iPad even after a few weeks solid use, is 
the omission of cursor keys for small adjustments in text cursor positions or 
text selections. Text editing, even on an iPad with its auto correction, and 
realtime frame redraw perfect tap and hold magnifying glass effect can be 
frustrating. I think cursors are still important keys to have if we expect 
children

Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-17 Thread Esteban Arias 
Hi,
FVKBD support spanish keyboard?
Could be added an system scanning buttons to write. for example:
https://desarrollo.ceibal.edu.uy/projects/tecladoenpantalla/files
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Accessibility_virtualkeyboard
http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/1686

2010/6/17 Sayamindu Dasgupta 

> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta 
> wrote:
> > [Apologies for the cross-posting]
> >
> > Hello,
> > Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
> > FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
> > A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
> > layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
> > etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
> > key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
> > back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
> > I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
> > keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
> > switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
> > the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
> > have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
> > it from
> http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso
>
> For those who do not want to download the ISO, there's a screencast at
> http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar_vkbd_multi.ogv
> Thanks,
> Sayamindu
>
>
>
> --
> Sayamindu Dasgupta
> [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
> ___
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>



-- 
   Esteban Arias
   Plan Ceibal - Área Técnica
   Avda. Italia 6201
   Montevideo - Uruguay.
   Tel.: 601.57.73 Interno 2228
   E-mail : ear...@plan.ceibal.edu.uy
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar with a virtual (onscreen) keyboard

2010-06-17 Thread Sayamindu Dasgupta 
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta  wrote:
> [Apologies for the cross-posting]
>
> Hello,
> Thanks to the pointers provided by Peter Robinson, I got the Meego
> FVKBD (Free Virtual Keyboard)¹ running along with Sugar.
> A problem with the current FVKBD is that it supports only one base
> layout. Even "variants" of that layout (eg: CapsLock enabled, Symbols,
> etc) are treated as "temporary", which means that you press the "Caps"
> key, enter a capital letter, and immediately after that, it gets reset
> back to the base layout (lower case qwerty).
> I wanted something which would be similar to the existing physical
> keyboards that we ship with the XO machines - with a dedicated key to
> switch between different scripts in the same keyboard. I had to extend
> the code of FVKBD to implement that, and with the modified FVKBD, I
> have spun a live-cd ISO (based on the current SOAS). You can download
> it from http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar-vkbd-test/sugar-vkbd-test.iso

For those who do not want to download the ISO, there's a screencast at
http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/sugar_vkbd_multi.ogv
Thanks,
Sayamindu



-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
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