Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

I can't even figure out how to execute this thing. A pity, because it looks like a great thing to have for when mudding from the N800. Can anyone provide some really simple instructions? "Installing the thing for Dummies" style :)

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

Copy it to /usr/bin/ . If you want, do a cp /usr/bin/osso-xterm /home/user/MyDocs/ first to back up the old one.

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

I like the new xterm as well. I know others have asked for key outlines, but frankly I find things hard enough to read without having more. So less is better for me.

Have you thought about different colors for the overlay keys? For some reason, I am thinking yellow might be good (I'd have to see it).

Another thing. Is it possible to make overlapping keys? Don't know if you have seen the iPod touch, but it's onscreen keyboard looks way too small, but it works really well. It appears that the keys overlap, and there is some method to determine if your finger is covering more one key than the next. Not sure if you have that level of control. But I think it would make it easier to use, if you do.

Thanks again for the really cool and useful xterm!

Craig...

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

It's my opinion too that less is better in this case, that's why the transparent keyboard is so bare. The problem is that the keyboard is not transparent :) though.
It just prints over.
I'm working on a version now that will be truly transparent. In this case we may outline the buttons without losing from the terminal content.

Colors, in general, are "de gustibus" (depend on one's taste). The optimal color is also highly dependent on the background color. So this one should be configurable.

I'm not very sure, but I think I know what you're talking about.
From programming point of view (GTK) you're just getting a mouse button press. It's only in a single pixel.
But I think Nokia's lower level touch screen routines are implementing what you're saying. I mean, for sure when you're thumb typing you're pressing many more pixels than just one.
And in my experience the OS2006 on N770 does a better job at approximating what you wanted to press then the OS2007 (on N770). That was one of the main reasons I switched back to OS2006.

Like I said before, I'm having very little misses when I type. My rule is to aim for the symbol. That's printed in the middle of the area where the button is, so it has the highest probability of success.
One way to increase the success rate would be to have bigger buttons, therefore less buttons. I'm also working in this direction, but there is so much I can do if we want to have most of the symbols on the keyboard.

Daniel

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

Hi Daniel,

good job, great success.
My congratulations.
Pls tell me if python is a right solution to write a plugin or something else to add some flying buttons to maemo navigation solutions like maemo mapper or pymapper.
Does python has any connectivity to touch screen libraries, functions, methods ?

Thanks.
Darius

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

Python in general is a very nice language, with lots of libraries, in general everything you need.
However, unless the application you want to enhance (maemo mapper) already supports python (by having it embeded which means that supports python plugins) you can't really do much from the outside.
pymapper is entirely a different matter: it's written in Python, so if you have the app you have the source code so you can modify it.

Daniel

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

Wow, I just had a chance to try this in OS2006 (my other mmc card).

Why does it work sooo much better? What I found is that double key presses are more likely, but I can learn to press lighter. on 2007HE, the screen doesn't sense as well and I press quite a bit harder than I'd like to.

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

It sounds a little goofy at first, but it's actually easy to use and very handy.

Thanks for this clever piece of work.

Only issue I have (on an N800) is that I don't have the x on the second row right side. According to the notes I saw, there should be an x to hide the transparent keyboard. Instead of the x I have another < which seems be another backspace.

NOTE: Reading through this thread again it seems that I got an old version, but I got the file from here:

http://www.dnastase.info/nokia770/

Please add a version number on the web site so the current release version is obvious.

Thanks again.

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

I think you'd get a similar result if you modified the standard full screen keyboard by:

1) make it show the background app at the top, the way the stylus keyboard does.

2) move the "downarrow" (dismiss) button to where the menu button is

3) make the bottom row a little less tall (it's slightly taller than the other rows)

If that was offered as an alternative layout to the standard full screen keyboard, then you could use it with any app. Especially if it was well integrated with pidgin and the various xterm variants.

How hard would it be to add a 4th input style (std. full screen, stylus, handwriting)?

Re: osso-xterm w/ overlayed transparent keyboard
 

Daniel,

Well thanks very much for this. I have been using it quite a bit for kismet and wavemon (802.11 text-base apps).

Let us know when you get a new version released. I would be happy to give it a try!

Craig...