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

[Gary Martin]

Hi Sayamindu,

On 29 Jun 2010, at 22:25, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 1:58 AM, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Gary Martin <garycmartin at googlemail.com> 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]