Need on-screen keyboard with mouse functions

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mikeslr
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Alternate Keyboard Exploration

#101 Post by mikeslr »

Hi SFR,

I kind of guessed it might be the way radar/Navbar located the corner of xvkbd's onscreen keyboard, but as much of their code is above my level of understanding I wasn't going to ask before checking out other possibilities. For a modified keyboard to work all the following must be properly functioning together: the computer's hardware, the operating system (in this case a version of Puppy), xvkbd, radar or navbar and the modification.
Going back to the drawing board was not without its benefits. I had been using wary 5.5. But since wary might have been the problem I decided to build a pup using Precise. While it didn't solve the "radar closing" problem, it made it clear that xvkbd's inability to open menus using Alt-KeyLetter combinations was a wary failing. Precise functions properly.
Another possibility was that my modifications were too radical: that "non-printing" control keys, such as Ctrl, space, Backspace, and so on were limited to the edges by xvkbd. So I re-designed a keyboard which only re-arranged the "printing" characters. Although it might in the hands of an experienced user add a little to the time it takes to accomplish something, it was in many ways more rational and would be easier to learn. Now that the "radar closing problem" is solved, I'll rework it as an alternative to the keyboard I posted.

Thanks again for your continuing efforts on this project. I do hope you've enjoyed the challenge and aren't getting bored with it. I'll email you about a couple other ideas I've had. But it seems to have gotten to be about 1:27 in the morning. So I'll leave that to another day.

mikesLr
Last edited by mikeslr on Tue 21 May 2013, 14:43, edited 2 times in total.

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Question for anyone interested in this project

#102 Post by mikeslr »

Hi All,

I've used Wary 5.5 and Upup 3.72 to explore xvkbd and radar/navbar. When xvkbd is started from a terminal a message appears about the possibility that the AltGr key may not work. But I've only used, and modified, the "common=US default" and the UK keyboard which don't include an AltGr key. Being in the US, and limited in my language ability to English, I'll leave resolution of any problems with AltGr to others. My concern is keys that apparently have been included in all of Tom Sato's builds, but don't seem to function on either of the two computers I've worked with: a ZT system built around a 4x AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor, and an IBM Thinkpad T42.
The first of those keys bears the label "Meta." I've read that its supposed to function as the "Windows" key on the US International Keyboard, or (I think) the Super_L key on a Mac. (Not having a Mac, I wasn't paying much attention). But on my computers it not only does nothing, running XEV and clicking it --or it and another key-- fails to indicate anything beyond that the other key was pressed. The Meta key could be used to create keyboard commands that didn't conflict with keyboard commands built into the windows manager or applications. But if pressing it doesn't register as a recognizable event, than Meta keys are just occupying space which could be better used for keys which are recognizable. Does anyone have a system which recognizes the Meta Keys? And if so, does anyone know how to make use of them?
The other key which, at least on my systems, appears to just occupy space is the "Compose" Key. In the file which creates the keyboard layout although it bears the label "compose", it is otherwise referred to as the Multi_Key. Does anyone know what its supposed to do, and how to use it?
Another almost superfluous key is CapLocks. With xvkbd's properties set to lock the shift key, and Shift clicked on the clicking of all further keys will generated their shifted symbols. The only reason to use Caplocks instead would be to type Capital Letters together with numbers. Shift, while on, will print the symbols over the numbers rather than the numbers.
As I previously mentioned, in order to include an "Esc=Escape" key on each row, I've had to leave out some little used symbols found on the "Common" keyboard. There are at least two symbols found on the UK keyboard that also could be included. I'm sure that I can find other symbols that would have some use. So I'd like some feedback and suggestions.

mikesLr
Last edited by mikeslr on Tue 21 May 2013, 15:04, edited 1 time in total.

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mikeslr
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Alternate Letter Frequency Keyboard for xvkbd & radar/navbar

#103 Post by mikeslr »

Hi All,

I've attached an alternate keyboard for use with xvkbd and radar or Navbar. Also attached is a photo of how it will appear. See my last couple of posts for explanations of the advantage and disadvantage of this arrangement of keys, and instructions of how to put it to use.

Happy Computing,

mikesLr


P.S. According to the analysis of letter frequency based on the Gutenberg Project
E T A O I N S H R D L U
are the 12 most frequently used letters. You may wonder why they weren't all placed on the first row below the Function Keys. When radar/Navbar goes into xvkbd mode it begins to scroll down the left edge of the onscreen keyboard until the "button" is pressed, at which time it begins to scroll to the right. I "guestimated" that the letters HRDLU, despite their being on the "2nd" row, would be reached faster than if they were at the right end of the "1st" row. And see my previous posts regarding the reason for including the "." among the earliest symbols to be reached.
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XVkbd-1switchB.zip
Delete false Zip, and version designation "-1switchB"
(2.74 KiB) Downloaded 619 times
XVkbd-1switchB.png
View of keyboard B.
(14.52 KiB) Downloaded 1731 times

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ETP
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Alternate Letter Frequency Keyboard for xvkbd & radar/navbar

#104 Post by ETP »

Hi mikeslr,
That looks fine. I would not worry about AltGr as the French will be using their own k/b layout and we Brits make little use of the euro symbol € :lol:
I have found that the meta keys do not work with jwm but IIRC Tom did warn that not all features of Xvkbd would work with some WMs.
My only suggestion is (If possible) you might like to swap the positions of the Focus and Meta keys on the bottom line as it is a pain
waiting for the cursor to traverse to what will probabably be a frequently used key.
ps
I sent you a PM on the 28th April which you do not appear to have accessed.
Regards ETP
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Regarding modification of the xvkbd keyboard

#105 Post by mikeslr »

Hi ETP,

I was going to swap the Focus and Meta Key per your request, and will be happy to if you still want that. But subscribing to the philosophy “Give a man a fish and you feed him one day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time

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ETP
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Regarding modification of the xvkbd keyboard

#106 Post by ETP »

Hi mikeslr,

Thanks for posting your detailed description of how to modify Xvkbd. It will be of benefit to anyone wanting to go down this route. One minor point of clarification however concerning:
#include "XVkbd-common"
I'm not sure why it begins with the # sign.

Once you “un-comment
Regards ETP
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Can Word-Completition become functional?

#107 Post by mikeslr »

Hi ETP and All,
Word Completion: type a couple of letters and then insert into your text from a list the word or phrase beginning with those letters. For someone limited to waiting for a mouse-cursor following a prescribed pattern to reach each letter and typing one letter at a time, word completion should be of great value. But currently it isn't.
Unless, of course, I've missed something.
First problem: turning xvkbd's word-completion on. I can find no way for it to be turned on automatically when xvkbd starts. To use it, it must be turned on each time.
Second problem: To turn it on, you have to position the mouse-cursor on the MainMenu button (which bears the label “xvkbd
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Word-Completion-Window.png
Ameliorating one problem with Word-Completion
(139.31 KiB) Downloaded 762 times

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ETP
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RE: Can Word-Completition become functional?

#108 Post by ETP »

Hi mikeslr,

I think you may have missed my 2 posts dated 21st April which solved issues 1 to 3 inclusive.

The fourth and fifth problems are the reasons why I have only ever perceived word-completion as useful for really long words or hyphenated phrases. Only then does it become a time saver. It was also the main rational for including Chromium and having Google default to voice search in TPWNN.

LibreOffice, (In sfs form perhaps?) may be of more use but Google have recently purchased a Quantum computer and appear to be working on web based voice dictation for all. In effect a sort of on-line “Dragon Dictate
Regards ETP
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ETP
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Eviacam 1.6.0 dotpet for Precise based pups.

#109 Post by ETP »

Hi All,

I do not yet know whether or not this is needed, but a pet (18.5MB) is now available on my server. I have tested it on a number of Precise based pups but only with JWM. Someone may wish to try it with other WMs.

When using head mouse control, it is best to avoid having icons or panels in the centre of the screen to avoid unintentional mouse triggers. A limited number around the periphery of the screen seems to work best.

It works particularly well with Xbmc-Frodo. Have fun; a “teaser
Attachments
Webcamera-Mouse-Pup.jpg
Testing with Precise 5.6
(50.79 KiB) Downloaded 1020 times
Regards ETP
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8-bit
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#110 Post by 8-bit »

In one of my old Atari magazines, I have a word processor/ communicator that is joystick driven.
It shows a number of common words that can be selected to place in the document and inserts a space after each word.
Also partial words can be used as in one word being part of a longer word.
It is written in Atari Basic. But could possibly be programmed in another programming language.
What would make it nice is one would not have to type out words letter by letter.

Now for the bad news. I am no great programmer and the conversion could take a fair amount of time.

Do you know of anything like it ready made?
Any interest in a tried conversion of the program? (Not even started yet!)

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Ted Dog
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#111 Post by Ted Dog »

Bacon? Basic to C Convertor is in dev.sfs

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#112 Post by vovchik »

Dear guys,

I did one 90% of one in BaCon a while back http://basic-converter.proboards.com/in ... 479&page=8 but never got around to finishing it. It needs a tad bit bit more work but the demo will give you an idea. The source is also in the archive, along with the binary. It is at the top of the page. Any takers?

With kind regards,
vovchik

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ETP
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MouseCam Pup v4

#113 Post by ETP »

Regards ETP
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mikeslr
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Joystick to control mouse-cursor

#114 Post by mikeslr »

Awhile ago darkcity mentioned a friend who might benefit if there were a variant of "one-switch" which could be operated using a joystick. While scanning the new Carolina, I got the impression that Geoffrey had some knowledge of joysticks/gamepads. So I emailed him for help enabling a joystick or gamepad to control mouse-cursor movements and he responded:

"I really don't know much about joysticks and gamepads, but I will usually find a way to get them working, most should work OOTB.

I've never had the need to use one, not even for gaming, well I'm not a gamer , I had a look at your request and found a QT application called qjoypad, I think this what you are needing, it can be configured to emulate a mouse very easily, I quickly set it up and works extremely well, I'm impress with it, all modern gamepad joysticks have a button under the stick so moving the mouse and then pushing down on the stick can act as the left mouse button.

I compiled this in Carolina but it should work with any pup with qt4 installed, [my emphasis] though I haven't tested in any other pups myself http://qjoypad.sourceforge.net/#download

I hope this proves to be useful for you

Cheers,

Geoff"

Since this will emulate a mouse, the user may not need One-switch/radar/navbar at all. The default xvkbd pet would provide an onscreen keyboard. Somewhere on this thread you'll find a 4,000+ word "common words" file which xvkbd can use with its word-completion module together with instructions on where to install it. Toward the end of this thread you'll also find an alternate keyboard placing frequently used letters close to each other. It, however, was designed for use with One-switch whose xvkbd mode runs a pattern beginning at the keyboard's top-left corner. In the next couple of days I hope to publish --thanks to a variation in how xvkbd mode works [without that automatic scrolling pattern] that SFR sent me-- a keyboard in which frequently used letters, and those they are frequently associated with, spiral out from a central space bar.
Let me know if the pet proves useful, or if there are any problems. I don't own a joystick or gamepad so I can't test.

mikesLr

Addendum: 6/10-- As I indicated above, it was my intention to write a keyboard in which frequently used letters, and those they are frequently associated with, spiral out from a central space bar. I have posted it on the MouseCam thread in the hope it may prove useful. Like those employing a joystick/gamepad, the mousecam pup does not rely on radar/Navbar. Instead it employs eviacam to control mouse movement. My post can be found here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 919#707919
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qjoypad-4.1.0.pet
mouse emulation via joystick
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Creation of the Square XVkbd keyboard arrangement

#115 Post by mikeslr »

Hi All,

As indicated in the above post, you'll find, for use with XVkbd, a keyboard file in which the most frequently employed keys spiral out from a central spacebar and, where possible, keys frequently associated with those keys are located near to them. As I've used this thread as a vehicle for providing guidance to those desiring to create their own customized keyboard layouts, for the sake of completeness I thought the following was appropriate.

I first tried to create a "letter frequency" keyboard using those models discussed previously in this thread. I used a LibreOffice Table to sketch out key placement. That revealed that it would require a Row for Function Keys and about two columns for Command and Modifier keys, and roughly a square of by 6 columns by 7 rows for Alpha-numeric keys. That posed the problem in that the space-key, which was supposed to be in the center, wasn't. The Function Keys were part of the problem. XVkbd is designed so that the Function Key Row can be turned on and off. Consequently a key occupying the central row had to do so whether there were 7 or 8 rows. And the center of 8 columns is actually the line between column 4 and column 5. I attempted to overcome these problems by declaring different heights for rows, and different widths for command-and-modifying keys versus the standard "30" width for Alpha-numerics. That resulted in a somewhat bizarre appearance, but more importantly no configuration I wrote reduced the spacebar's width below 60.. It seemed to be hard-wired.
Examination of various keyboards which Tom Sato wrote revealed only one instance in which the spacebar had the same width as Alphanumeric keys: his Strip Keyboard. The strip keyboard has two columns of keys (mostly Alphabetic) which run down the left side of the screen, and two columns (numbers and Function keys, unless a modifyer is engaged) running down the right side of the screen. All the keys, including the spacebar, (with one exception) were exactly the same height and width. Analysis of the composition of the Strip Keyboard revealed that what Mr. Sato did was to assign the number keys entirely to the keypad which his geometry declaration placed at the right edge, and the alphabetic keys to the keyboard which his geometry declaration placed at the left edg; and declare all keys to have the same height and width. So what I did --besides similarly declaring all keys to have the same height and widtth-- was to adopt Mr. Sato's command to "disinherit" geometry, but also include a command to turn the keypad off, to wit:

xvkbd.inheritGeoemetry: false
xvkbd.keypad: false

The center of the resulting keyboard is actually within the spacekey, albeit in its top-left quadrant.

Hope this helps,

mikesLr

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Alternate Radar for Square Keyboard & Keyboard Choice pet

#116 Post by mikeslr »

Hi All,
Update, 8/07/13: Revised pet and explanation found here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 626#717626
Edit: 6/29/13: Revised pet for the reasons explained here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 825#710825

Thanks to SFR's programming genius and tolerance to things that I could imagine but not personally create, I am pleased to present a pet which may provide to Radar users both an easy way to try and use the Square –letter frequency arranged-- keyboard and change back to the 1Switch Keyboard if or when that layout may be more convenient. A picture of the Square keyboard can be found here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 919#707919. The pet installs both the Square and OneSwitch Keyboards.
The pet creates a menu entry, called xvkbd keyboard chooser, on the Desktop>Desktop Settings submenu, adjacent to xvkbd's entry. When clicked it will provide the choice between four keyboard layouts: Square – Manual Control, Square –Automatic Scrolling, OneSwitch and Default US. After making a choice, BOTH Xvkbd and radar will have to be restarted.
If Square – Manual Control is chosen, radar will operate without Automatic Scrolling in Xvkbd mode. If that mode is selected, radar's xvkbd mode works somewhat differently than under OneSwitch. The mouse-cursor will start at the central Space key, but its direction will be under user control as in “non-xvkbd
Attachments
keyboard_choices-0.9.pet
revised xvkbd chooser pet
(25.73 KiB) Downloaded 549 times
Last edited by mikeslr on Wed 07 Aug 2013, 14:43, edited 6 times in total.

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greengeek
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#117 Post by greengeek »

Thanks Mike, this will be good to try.
I'm very much behind the 8-ball at the moment, having had a substantial break (to the point where I've actually forgotten what I was doing a couple of months ago), and I feel it's going to take quite a lot of time for me to work out how well these alternative keyboards can work. (maybe thats a good thing that I can view it with fresh eyes...)

I'm guessing that someone who grew up with qwerty will still prefer something similar, but there are probably users who are happy to adjust to layouts that are geometrically more efficient.

I'm planning to sit down for a whole weekend at some point and only type with one finger and see what seems to works best.

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mikeslr
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Some xvkbd Word-Completion Tools

#118 Post by mikeslr »

Hi all,

Some tools for using xvkbd's word-completion module.
Inspired by ETP, I thought there should be an easy way for a user to add those words and phrases he or she commonly employs if they were not already in a wordlist. The attached add_words pet creates an entry on the desktop submenu. Although a Utility, I figured it would be easier to find if it were on the same submenu as xvkbd.
The “Add Words
Attachments
words_choice-0.8.pet
Choose which of various wordlist xvkbd word-completion will use. See post for
obtaining wordlists.
(20.52 KiB) Downloaded 494 times
add_words-0.8.pet
Require Xvkbd; Opens "words" in default editor for adding words and phrases
(6.19 KiB) Downloaded 510 times

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#119 Post by greengeek »

Added a new thread containing a tutorial for the oneswitch keyboard modification here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 282#711282
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13Fit_socket_and_resistor_.JPG
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#120 Post by greengeek »

Have updated the keyboard modification thread to include a much simpler mod that I have done to a cheap usb keypad. Works well. (just uses the * asterisk key instead of a pause/break key - but it works perfectly because the oneswitch config gui allows you to select which keyboard, and which keyswitch you want to monitor)

Cost of various Puppy Operating systems - $0.00 (courtesy of BK et al)
Cost of OneSwitch Radar & Navbar dotpet - $0.00 (courtesy of SFR)
Cost of hotpluggable interface for switch - $10.00 or less (courtesy of the hardworking people of China)

Priceless!

Just got to work on cheap ways to build the switches next...
Attachments
07Finished_.JPG
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