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General => Users => Topic started by: jamo on August 10, 2012, 09:35:06 am

Title: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: jamo on August 10, 2012, 09:35:06 am
Hi All

Any tips here? I might just be doing something silly. When I open the web browser from my onscreen orbiter in 10.04 (UI2-medium), I can use my remote (wiimote) to "click" anywhere with no problem but when I want to type something and I bring up the onscreen keyboard, the keystrokes don't end up in the browser window, even though the keyboard registers the presses (the key highlights when it gets clicked on).

I tried, for example, filling in the address bar as follows:

you can click in the address bar and the cursor appears there, but then when you click on the onscreen keyboard keys, no letters appear in the address bar. A bit as though the focus has been lost.

Anyone else have these problems?
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: Armor Gnome on August 10, 2012, 09:37:52 am
I haven't tried in 1004 but I have never been able to use the onscreen keyboard with remote or orbiter going back to 8.10.

Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: tschak909 on August 10, 2012, 06:07:45 pm
Sorry guys,

It needs to be worked on. Somebody in HADesigner could go in and make replacement keys (as in, totally new designobjs) that send to the local orbiter, to solve the problem.

-Thom
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 10, 2012, 06:27:04 pm
While you guys are at it, would you mind looking into an option to remove the onscreen keyboard (as in don't show it at all),?? ... a web admin option or even just a config file edit would be great.
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: tschak909 on August 10, 2012, 06:36:53 pm
Why don't you look into doing that, since you need it?
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 10, 2012, 09:51:23 pm
Is there any documentation on how the keyboard is called up?

I couldn't find anything regarding the on-screen keyboard in the wiki,... So, I'm assuming I'd need to look at any readme files on the SVN related to user interface an/or how web apps are called up...

Could you point me in the right direction where to look?
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: tschak909 on August 10, 2012, 10:56:10 pm
The on-screen keyboard is a screen in orbiter, therefore it must be edited in HA Designer. The designobj you want to edit is 3292, the generic app full screen designobj.

There, you will see a button, for the keyboard, there should be a Goto DesignObj in its onActivate, to go to another designobj, this designobj is the Virtual keyboard.

This keyboard needs to be re-made...that is, each little designobj in it, needs to be deleted, and then replaced with new designobjs that send their keystrokes to another place...probably -203... but I am not sure. There will need to be experimentation here.

The whole mechanism to send keypresses to the display was literally a quick hack inserted  by someone at pluto, and needs to be rethought.

-Thom
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 11, 2012, 12:06:37 am
That you say that the onscreen keyboard needs to be rethought has me thinking (I know,... you're saying "uh-oh."). Why not just substitute one of the available onscreen keyboard applications, and not require it be integrated in with HA Designer/DesignObj? Simply replace that entire thing with a simple (and hopefully out-of the way and pretty) on-screen toggle that will call the keyboard app?

Suitable keyboard apps include:
... ad nauseum,...

The best candidate would probably be Florence... with the second being Cellwriter's keyboard (it posts it's virtual keypresses
right to the key buffer, as I understand it, don't know how Florence works).

But Florence is attractive, easily theme-able, and is gaining a lot of momentum, as of the last couple of years. It also has a feature that allows it to be automatically called when text input is required, while I don't know if LinuxMCE is compatible with that. However, I honestly don't know if it would meet LinuxMCE compatibility requirements, but it's worth a shot, especially if it relieves anyone of the obligation to code a complex alternative.

Florence can be found here:
http://florence.sourceforge.net/english.html

With an explanation of alternatives (very nice of them) here:
http://florence.sourceforge.net/english/alternatives.html
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: tschak909 on August 11, 2012, 12:23:58 am
This will not work because of the fact that these onscreen keyboards are unaware of the environment that Orbiter is presenting. Orbiter is intercepting any and all keystrokes and mouse clicks, so that it can essentially act as the interface that is overlaid atop the active media application. This is context sensitive, and changes depending on the screen.

Basically, I'd rather just remove the keyboard until someone can actually sit down and understand that part of the code, and make the necessary changes for it to work properly. They aren't huge changes, but it will take someone with either the understanding or the willingness to understand that part of the code to be able to fix it.

-Thom
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 11, 2012, 12:40:22 am
I have no objection to removing the keyboard... Since it is not really working anyway, I would assume few others would either.

But a question for thought:
Is the Orbiter taking 100% focus, essentially? And is it possible to make it allow an overlay on top of it's own self?

Alternatively, someone could take the code from one of those other projects and cannibalize it for conversion to LinuxMCE use...

Note: Florence's automatic text field detection is incompatible with QT3 because it requires at-spi to work... Don't know if that spells doom for LinuxMCE's orbiter code...
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: Armor Gnome on August 11, 2012, 12:42:58 am
Perhaps I misunderstood the fate of the current orbiter.  I was under the impression that a complete replacement was sought and that time spent adding features under QuickDesigner or HA Designer was better spent getting qOrbiter on its feet?

Am I oversimplifying this, and will there still be need for someone to be the local pro on Orbiter?
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: tschak909 on August 11, 2012, 12:50:44 am
Until qOrbiter replaces the on screen display, Orbiter will be used.

-Thom
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 11, 2012, 12:57:46 am
Hmmm,

If a wholesale replacement for the Orbiter is sought,... why wouldn't the underlying KDE/Kwin stuff be an alternative? It's QT based, after all...

The Orbiter's concept for pre-drawing a lot of the stuff, anyway, was motivated by saving CPU and GPU cycles,... which is hardly necessary any longer even with hardware that's even 3-4 years old.

I dunno,... I don't know enough about what is necessary for the UI (or a replacement) to cooperate with the DCE router to do all of it's jobs correctly...
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: Armor Gnome on August 11, 2012, 03:46:44 am
Okay I now have the ability to take on the keyboard task,  give me a little while to crash course myself into understanding the various fields and inputs and I will let you know when I have something.

Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: JaseP on August 11, 2012, 03:50:30 am
Extra points for being able to turn it off completely,... wink... wink... (I don't want to feel like spending $35 a piece for Rii wireless keyboards/IR remotes was a waste... )

 ;)
Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: Armor Gnome on August 11, 2012, 05:35:06 am
Sorry JaseP, no luck on that.

I actually already have the solution, I just need to learn the language of program and PK naming to implement it.

When you have two similar things and one works but the other doesn't.  You can start by asking what one is doing wrong or you can ask what one is doing right.

The standard roaming orbiter sends its keyboard commands to the browser just fine.  The on-screen orbiter does not.  My first step will be to find the object associated with the roaming orbiter's buttons and see what they do.  Apply that to the objects (buttons) associated with the on-screen keyboard and it should just be a matter of changing that 102 times to have the clicks going to the browser.

The one monkey wrench I see possible and I will cross that bridge if it comes up is that pressing the keys on the virtual keyboard seems to deselect the browser window, that may be a function of orbiter intercepting the command and sending it somewhere else, I haven't tested that much yet.

The last parameter I found interesting was that the name field for these buttons contained no entries.  It states clearly in the ADD popup that if you dont specify a name the command goes to DCE.  I will need to tinker some but I am certain one of the thought trains above will get me there.  I also have webBrowser and webMozilla to sort out, but again once I figure out where quickdesigner is hiding the roaming orb keyboard commands I will know a lot more.

Thanks for this project, it kicked me in the butt to finally get into designer and really seeing this process.

Title: Re: Onscreen keyboard 10.04 keystrokes not going to web browser
Post by: Armor Gnome on August 12, 2012, 09:00:13 am
Of course things never end up as easy as you expect them to be.

I am still working on this however and will get it resolved.  The problem at the moment is, I am not sure the keyboard buttons I am altering are the correct keyboard buttons, the orbiter keyboard buttons I was checking device data on may or may not be the orbiter buttons and the device I am telling all these buttons to go to may or may not be the browser.

Either QuickDesigner is not the proper tool for this or I do not yet know how to look for things in it.  So far I can not have it produce a list of device #s or action #s.  These would be extremely helpful in testing.  The menus I am able to navigate actually show about 13 varieties of *browser* so at this point I am somewhat guessing when I make changes.  Also the "where used" option does not seem to be working, that alone could be used to give me the screen where the mousepad is used,  I could query objects in that screen and know exactly where those buttons send their outputs.  This is what I thought I had already with device -300 which again I am not sure what device that actually is.

Last, something that really confuses me about the onscreen keyboard is that with no changes at all the buttons sometimes work.  I believe this is due to a stay active command for the browser.  Click on the browser and you get a flashing cursor where you would enter text.  When you move down to the onscreen keyboard the mouse icon changes to a large cross, clicking on the keyboard buttons then makes the keyboard active and deactivates the browser.  To break this function, navigate to a page with saved username or password fields (or probably any site with this type of drop down menu) begin entry into the username field until a drop down menu appears. Now when you move the mouse icon down to the keyboard the icon does not change shape and ONE button click will make it through to the browser.

Thoughts on the above work around:  Because no button I found was mapped to a specific application and was instead blank indicating the command should be sent to DCE, the fix for this may not be in keyboard button settings at all, but in the change from "mouse position over browser" and "mouse position over virtual keyboard."  Again I have maybe two hours into tinkering with this only at this point.

Does anyone happen to know of a live DL location for HADesigner?  Some of the search tips and commands I am getting are for use in that program.