Mailing List Archive

(rant, bad language) virtual keyboard definitions
Hi all,

So, I was just looking to see if I could define a virtual keyboard as a 5 column, alphabetised grid, which might make it a little bit easier to enter text with a remote. I didn’t think it would be a walk in the park in any case, but I looked at the files for it (in MythFrontend.app/Contents/Resources/share/mythtv/themes/default/keyboard/; for Linux users that would probably be /usr/share/mythtv/themes/default/keyboard, although I don’t know why I’m telling you that…) and pretty much shat myself.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

You have to define, in each <LANG>.xml, and for EVERY SINGLE KEY, to which key the up arrow takes you, to which key the down arrow takes you, to which key the left arrow takes you, and to which key the right arrow takes you.

And you would have to do this for every single language ALL AT ONCE, because there is only one keyboard.xml.

There are <LANG>_ui.xml files too, which I *really* hope aren’t actually used any more, because if they are then there are widgets in MythUI that I’ve never even heard of. There's <container>, <keyboard>, and what the hell is <fcnfont> for?

It’s no shitting wonder it’s completely documented, there’d be no point—who in their right mind would want to work with any of this?? Even masochists have limits!

Rant over.

Sorry.

Sam


--
Sam Jacobs on MythTV 0.27, UK Freeview SD & Freesat HD, EIT-only EPG
Mac mini, MBE+FE: OS X Mavericks, bundled FE, macports BE
Acer Aspire L310, SBE: Debian testing, Elgato EyeTV for DTT Stick (Hauppauge Nova-T USB Stick in disguise!) & DVBSky S960 DVB-S2 USB

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Re: (rant, bad language) virtual keyboard definitions [ In reply to ]
On 10/05/14 04:49, Sam Jacobs wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> So, I was just looking to see if I could define a virtual keyboard as a 5 column, alphabetised grid, which might make it a little bit easier to enter text with a remote. I didn’t think it would be a walk in the park in any case, but I looked at the files for it (in MythFrontend.app/Contents/Resources/share/mythtv/themes/default/keyboard/; for Linux users that would probably be /usr/share/mythtv/themes/default/keyboard, although I don’t know why I’m telling you that…) and pretty much shat myself.
>
> Are you fucking kidding me?!
>
> You have to define, in each <LANG>.xml, and for EVERY SINGLE KEY, to which key the up arrow takes you, to which key the down arrow takes you, to which key the left arrow takes you, and to which key the right arrow takes you.
>
> And you would have to do this for every single language ALL AT ONCE, because there is only one keyboard.xml.
>
> There are <LANG>_ui.xml files too, which I *really* hope aren’t actually used any more, because if they are then there are widgets in MythUI that I’ve never even heard of. There's <container>, <keyboard>, and what the hell is <fcnfont> for?
>
> It’s no shitting wonder it’s completely documented, there’d be no point—who in their right mind would want to work with any of this?? Even masochists have limits!
>
> Rant over.
>
> Sorry.
>
> Sam
>
>

Good morning Sam,

First please don't swear on the mailing list. It doesn't bother me in
the slightest I hear worse than that at work every day :) but some
people get offended. I do know you are only letting of a little stream :)

Now you point it out it isn't idea to say the least. Sometimes things
develop in strange ways and that is what we are left with. I think the
problem here is some people wanted the movement in the keyboard to wrap
at the edges, so if you move all the way to the right you would be moved
to the far left.

To the best of my knowledge MythUI widgets don't have a way to say when
you press right in this widget move to this widget which is why you have
this strange arrangement with the movements defined in separate xml
files. Originally some keyboard layouts had more keys than others to
match real keyboard layouts for some international users. That was later
changes so at least now there is only one keyboard-ui.xml file.

There is no doubt this can be improved but how often do keyboard layouts
get changed? I think you are the first to do so and there are more
important things that need looking at first.

Paul H.
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Re: (rant, bad language) virtual keyboard definitions [ In reply to ]
> You have to define, in each <LANG>.xml, and for EVERY SINGLE KEY, to which
> key the up arrow takes you, to which key the down arrow takes you, to
> which key the left arrow takes you, and to which key the right arrow takes
> you.
>
> And you would have to do this for every single language ALL AT ONCE,
> because there is only one keyboard.xml.
>
> There are <LANG>_ui.xml files too, which I *really* hope aren’t actually used
> any more, because if they are then there are widgets in MythUI that I’ve
> never even heard of. There's <container>, <keyboard>, and what the hell is
> <fcnfont> for?

What I noticed is, that the keyboard xml files are not shared from themes/default/keyboard, they have to be copied in the theme directory.
Also noticed some naming oddities, in from themes/default/keyboard, a de.xml file exists, for me it only worked when coping them as de_de.xml.
The same goes for de_ui.xml vs. de_de_ui.xml.

Angela

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Re: (rant, bad language) virtual keyboard definitions [ In reply to ]
On 10 May 2014 at 09:34:48, Paul Harrison (mythtv@sky.com) wrote:
> Good morning Sam,
>
> First please don't swear on the mailing list. It doesn't bother me in
> the slightest I hear worse than that at work every day :) but some
> people get offended. I do know you are only letting of a little stream :)

Yeah, I *really* broke “Don’t Write Angry”! Many thanks for not responding in kind—I rather suspect that you’re a better person than I, especially since I now notice that you wrote much of the code I was trashing. I don’t think I could’ve been quite so level headed in the face of a similar onslaught…

I apologise both to you, Paul, and to anyone else I may have offended.


> Now you point it out it isn't idea to say the least. Sometimes things
> develop in strange ways and that is what we are left with. I think the
> problem here is some people wanted the movement in the keyboard to wrap
> at the edges, so if you move all the way to the right you would be moved
> to the far left.

If the keyboard was arranged in a grid, then it would be “trivial” (for a given value of trivial) to parse the <position>/<area> elements in the XML and calculate which widget is above, below, etc. the currently focused widget. The supplied keyboard.xml staggers the keys, which would presumably make the calculations more complex.

Part of the problem I’m facing is that even though the <LANG>.xml files all map to the same layout as defined in keyboard.xml, the <move> elements are still in <LANG>.xml.


> To the best of my knowledge MythUI widgets don't have a way to say when
> you press right in this widget move to this widget which is why you have
> this strange arrangement with the movements defined in separate xml
> files. Originally some keyboard layouts had more keys than others to
> match real keyboard layouts for some international users. That was later
> changes so at least now there is only one keyboard-ui.xml file.

Well there’s the <focusorder> “attribute”, but that’s one dimensional—as far as I can tell, a MythUI window itself doesn’t support two dimensional widget navigation *at all*. RIGHT and DOWN both move to the next widget in <focusorder> order, falling back to the order they are defined in the XML.


> There is no doubt this can be improved but how often do keyboard layouts
> get changed? I think you are the first to do so and there are more
> important things that need looking at first.

There are *many* more important things, I know—there always are. However, since I don’t know C++, hopefully my work on this only takes time away from my own projects. Well, except when I post a borderline abusive message and you take the time to write such a graceful reply.

Thanks,
Sam


--
Sam Jacobs on MythTV 0.27, UK Freeview SD & Freesat HD, EIT-only EPG
Mac mini, MBE+FE: OS X Mavericks, bundled FE, macports BE
Acer Aspire L310, SBE: Debian testing, Elgato EyeTV for DTT Stick (Hauppauge Nova-T USB Stick in disguise!) & DVBSky S960 DVB-S2 USB

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