Thank you, Dan!

It was the fact that I wasn't in "red pill" mode that was the reason it wouldn't install last time I tried. I had to search to find out about red pill mode. Once I changed to that mode everything installed, and worked, as planned. I now have a way of getting my crossword fix on my N800 thanks to the good folks on this forum!

By the way, I did not have to type "sudo gainroot" on my xterm. I just typed "xkbd" and it popped right up.

thanks!
tony

Has there been any progress on porting xword?

dunno... I'm not on the dev team that registered the project.

I just did a google search for "xword" and found TWO programs named "xword":

xword-0.07
Xword-1.0

The first appears to be C++ code and requires the gtk-- toolkit.
The second is written in python and requires PyGTK2.0. From looking at the xword garage project page, it is built on the python version.

If you can find PyGTK2 for OS2008, there are just a few files to be downloaded from the xword subversion repository (several .png files and one python script).

EDIT: I realized that I had PyGTK2 installed and so I would be able to test out the code. It turns out that it DOES work! However, you need to use xkbd on the N800, and it is extremely slow.

From looking at the subversion repository again, I think that some progress had been made on packaging up the whole thing (since there was an "xword.desktop" file), but I couldn't find a .deb for it.

So, if you are willing to do the hard work of downloading the files and manually installing them, AND you are okay with using xkbd, AND you can tolerate the speed, xword may satisfy your needs.

I have taken the plunge and attempted to bundle xword at the maemo garage into a .deb using PyPackager. I have an N800 with OS2008, so I have no idea if this will work for anybody else. I apologize in advance to other tablets with other O/S versions, and I also apologize to the xword garage project maintainer if he had plans to release xword at a later date. I don't mean to step on any toes!

Anyway, you will need python2.5 and python2.5-gtk2, both of which are available from the Maemo Extras repository. Again, I didn't do a lot of baseline testing since I really just wanted to get this working for me. Hopefully others will be able to download the attached .deb and install it.

Ultimately, you can just download the files from the subversion repository and run it that way. All I did was move files to their correct location and created a program icon. For the N800, I also installed xkbd and modified "/usr/share/xkbd/en_GB.qwerty.xkbd" as suggested by Addison (i.e. change all 26 lowercase letters to uppercase, as in "default_ks d" -> "default_ks D").

UPDATE 1.0.2: Made minor updates to program and added a special xkbd layout (see post below).

UPDATE 1.0.3: Added Preferences Menu option to show/hide xkbd (rather than launch xkbd from a shell script).

UPDATE 1.0.4: Replaced xkbd with built-in keyboard "toolbar", plus several bug fixes. New .deb HERE! (I'm leaving v1.0.3 here in case you prefer to use xkbd.)

UPDATE 1.0.5: Added new option for minimum box size. The .deb files can now be downloaded from the garage file respository. Also, see the spiffy new official home page.

can't wait to try this tonight...thanks!!!

Okay, I made some changes to the program and uploaded a new .deb (now version 1.0.2) which you can get from the post above.

Changes to the program:

1. D-pad center button now toggles between horizontal and vertical entry.
2. The two "check" buttons now pop up a message window since the status bar doesn't seem to work.
3. Program now checks for presence of xkbd and launches it with a layout I designed for xword on the N800.

The xkbd feature is nice for my N800 since it takes up the vertical space on the left (where the launcher icons are) much like the DosBox xkbd layout. I added a few special buttons (which you can see in the screen capture below) so you don't need to press any buttons on the d-pad if you don't want to.

NOTE: If you do NOT want xkbd to launch at startup, edit the file "/usr/share/applications/hildon/xword.desktop" and change the "Exec=..." line by removing the trailing ".sh" so it looks like this:
Here's the screen capture and an explanation of the special xkbd buttons at the bottom of the layout.

so, just to clarify (as I don't [yet] have xkbd installed on my n800): can you use, for instance, a BT keyboard for text entry and navigation, or is xkbd required?

terrencegf, nice work!

I compiled a version a long time back but nowhere near as good as this

xkbd is NOT required to run xword. In fact, my xword.sh script checks for the presence of the /usr/bin/xkbd binary before attempting to launch xkbd. If xkbd isn't installed, xword runs without it.

I tried xword with my iGo BT keyboard and it worked fine. I would assume you could use any keyboard (i.e. BT, USB, N810). Since I basically packaged up xword for my use, and I rarely use a BT keyboard, I selfishly made xkbd launch at the same time. Like I said in the previous post, you can easily change this behavior by editing the "xword.desktop" file and modifying the "Exec=..." line.