N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Not a lot of news since PR1.2.

The cornerstone of this project is still a modified version of hildon-desktop package providing a few enhancements. Description of the enhancements is here: http://my.svgalib.org/repo/Modified_Hildon_Desktop.html

It can be installed by installing modified-hildon-desktop package from my repository. Or by installing the package http://my.svgalib.org/770/n900/pr13/...+0m5_armel.deb

If you install this package (or any of my enhanced packages with same version number as original Nokia packages, please note that apt-get upgrade overwrites the new packages with the original ones. Either use package pinning or don't use apt-get upgrade. HAM update feature seems to be safe.

Other enhanced versions of system packages:

http://my.svgalib.org/770/n900/pr13/...+0m5_armel.deb : adds a d-bus signal for opening and closing the status menu. This allows opening this menu from the keyboard. New: The status menu now takes keyboard focus, so menu items can be selected and the menu can be closed by the keyboard.

http://my.svgalib.org/770/n900/pr13/...+0m5_armel.deb : This allows using up to 9 desktop views. Not strictly related to keyboard, but it is a popular feature of modified-hildon-desktop.

http://my.svgalib.org/770/n900/pr13/...+0m5_armel.deb : This is the new and most experimental enhancement. This adds: Ability to close application menu with escape or backspace. Ability to select button in application menu by pressing corresponding number (no need to press FN). Ability to scroll hildon pannable areas with arrows/pageup/pagedown/home/end. This does not always work, due to focus issues that still need to be worked out, but very nice when it does work.

Older packages that work unchanged:

keyboard-shortcuts: using dbus-scripts and modified-hildon-desktop to provide global shortcut keys.

longpress: allows for selecting profiles (or offline mode) by long press of lock key.


I am still looking for help in mainly to forms:

1. Ideas how to make the keyboard more usable.
2. Implementation of such ideas.

The main cause I find for touching the screen right now is for selecting links in web pages. If someone can get LoL extension ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8781/ ) or equivalent ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/879/ ) to work in microb or fennec, it will be really great.


The packages and sources for PR1.3 are here:

http://my.svgalib.org/770/n900/pr13/

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

First link is busted.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Hi, thanks very much for these packages. I am a "keyboard commando" and avoid using mouse/touching screen in general.

I use the alt-tab-style switching (/apps/osso/hildon-desktop/key-actions/ctrl_backspace_in_tasknav = 5) and phone feels naked without it. :)

However, I have a problem. Every time I try to "alt-tab" switch to a yellow mail notification window, the desktop crashes and has to reload. I'm using modified-hildon-desktop 3.3 package from your repo.

Please let me know if there's anything I can test or any useful information for you. Thanks again!

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

I do love it too, and I do have the yellow notification problem too!

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Glad I'm not the only one then :)

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

I have it as well. You can also see it in a different way:
If you switch to the navigator (for example by touching the icon on the top left corner of the screen), you can use keys to select windows. 'q' selects top left window, 'w' select the window right of it, 'a' selects the window under it, etc. If you try to select a yellow window, you get similar issues as well.

Since I don't have a sim in my N900, I rarely encounter this bug, so it is low in my priority list, but maybe I'll solve it one day. Or maybe someone else will.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Strangely, when I use the letter keys to choose the notification it works for me without crashing. So far I only have the problem when using control-backspace.

Good news is that most of the time I can simply avoid switching to the yellow windows in most cases. The only time it is unavoidable is when yellow notification is the ONLY window, in which case it crashes the instant I press control-backspace.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Hello matan,
First of all, thank you for all the work you have been doing!!!
I'm a noob to all the xterm business. I have a problem with changeing the backgrounds on the extra views. i don't know in wich thread i have to be anymore, I have about 15 windows opened because i was affraid to never find the pages again.
I'm completely lost now ( that one is for pr1.2 the other even for the pr 1.1) i have pr1.3 installed. and the problem is that i can't change the backgrounds, if i try only the first original screen gets the wallpaper i selected. screen 5 and 7 remain black all the time.
please could you help me?

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

anyone having problems with the desktop locking ?
i have to kill the hildon-home proccess ...
using matan's hildon desktop and pr 1.3 ...

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

locking = stop answering ...
can move between desktops but can not click on shorcuts or widgets ...
i am not the only one :)

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Question: Can modified-hildon-desktop be used to implement *precisely* alt-tab (using an external keyboard) to switch between windows?

As an explanation, I don't mind having to use the screen when I have the N900 in my hands anyway, but I also like to use an external keyboard and then I really hate having to touch the screen to change windows. And, for consistency's sake, I want to use alt-tab on my N900, just as I do on my other computers.

Thanks!

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

As it is right now it can't, unless you map the alt to ctrl and tab to backspace. It should be easy to implement. What is the output of xmodmap when the keyboard is connected? How do you set the keyboard mapping?

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Hi, I hope someone can help. I am having problems installing this package, given in the first post by Matan. After application manager open and attemps to install I get the following message "Unable to update hildon desktop. incompatiable application package". I have also downloaded the .deb and tried to install it manually, but I get the same error message. Since moving to PR1.3 I have not re-installed this software until now.

Matan wrote in his first post..
If you install this package (or any of my enhanced packages with same version number as original Nokia packages, please note that apt-get upgrade overwrites the new packages with the original ones. Either use package pinning or don't use apt-get upgrade. HAM update feature seems to be safe.

Can someone explain what is the HAM update feature?
Thanks, Keith

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

I have managed to install the modified hildon desktop by simply adding Matan's respository to Faster application manager. All working now...

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

@matan Sorry I took so long to get back to you, forgot to subscribe to the thread and didn't notice your reply.

In answer to your questions, I use extkbd to set the keyboard mapping and this is the output from xmodmap. It's all voodoo to me I'm afraid.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

1. In addition to disabling the default typing-searches-contacts, ability send the typed text somewhere else, ie Notes app/widget, or the clipboard.

More ambitiously, this could be dependent on the currently selected homescreen: ie if you type in a homescreen that has the Contacts widget on it then it would search contact, if you type in a screen that has the Notes widget, it enters text into the widget

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

I have the newest modified desktop and keyboard-shortcuts, I'm using PR1.3 and everytime I open a browser window via ctrl-shift-i or ctrl-shift-b it seems to open two new browser windows instead of one. the same happens with pressing 'o' in the task nav.
I've been playing with the keyboard-shortcut script, and I was wondering why can't I use:
import webbrowser
webbrowser.open_new("")
to open a new window instead of the dbus call. seems to work fine in the interactive python shell but not when implemented in the keyboard-shortcut script.
Also I'd like to know how to make the python script launch e.g. conky so I could make it launch when ctrl-shift-c is pressed.
Any help would be appreciated.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Okay nevermind, got it solved. Seems that sometimes my phone runs a double instance of dbus-scripts, so the keyboard-shortcut script runs twice everytime, and I have to kill dbus-scripts to get it working properly again. Don't know why this happens though.

Re: N900 keyboard friendly, PR1.3
 

Not sure if others had trouble with CSSU upgrades like I did when using modified-hildon-desktop, but I really wanted keyboard shortcuts and the ability to stay with latest updates. Result was using xbindkeys & setting it to start on boot. If anyone is interested check it out here