Nicolai said he will help. Which is great

Some observations and results from playing with the source from jonwil
and freemangordon:
(HildonVKBRenderer, HildonIMWesternFKB, Keyboard Layout XML)

a. HildonIMWesternFKB responsible for the GtkDialog, and some more
b. HildonVKBRenderer renders Keyboard layout inside
of the GtkDialog

1. Bottom button row with menu, space and enterkey is created by
HildonIMWesternFKB with fixed size. This is the reason why the
space button overlaps the menu button if you just use the landscape
keyboard with forced rotation.

2. Size of the other buttons is defined in the layout xml files ...

3. ...whereas the shift and backspace button use a theme based image
The name of the images is defined in the himrc resource file
(/usr/share/hildon-input-method/himrc).
Thats the reason why the arrow in the shift button vanishes
(scaled to zero) if you use the landscape keyboard in a dialog with forced rotation.

4. Font is defined in the himrc resource file: X-LargeSystemFont

5. The drawing area for HildonVKBRenderer is fixed at construction
time of the HildonIMWesternFKB dialog 800x210 pixels.
Thats the reason why the dialog looks ugly if you use a user defined
xml layout file with more than 3 rows (cut-off/repeating button pixmaps)

6. Predefined LayoutTypes in (western) keyboardlayout xmlfile:
"NORMAL": Not used in Fremantle, the old stylus/finger keyboard
with full qwerty and number block
"THUMB": Normal keyboard layout with 3 rows.
"SPECIAL": ?


Todo

I. Let WindowManager know HildonIMWesternFKB supports Portrait mode
Done/Works

II. Listen on orientation/size change
Done/Works

III. Resize space key button on portrait orientation
Done/Works

IV. Make drawing area dimension of HildonVKBRenderer changeable and
recreate preallocated pixmap if orientation changed
Done/Works but depends on how we want a portrait mode layout
look. What dimension should the portrait mode keyboard have?

V. Load a "portrait mode layout" for portrait orientation.
Done/ I am using the unused layout type "SPECIAL" (as mentioned above) and define a layout for this type in my de_DE keyboard layout
Is this the way we want to use a portrait mode keyboard or
should we use the same landscape layout but using a different way
rendering it (dont know if t his is possible)

Some experiments
VI. Change font to X-SystemFont for portrait mode
Works/ But that way we would need to add more resource descriptions
to the himrc resource file

VII. Change button icon name for shift and backspace icon for
an icon with smaller dimension in portrait mode
Works/ But that way we would need to add more resource descriptions
to the himrc resource file and add icons for all themes.

tl;dr
Need some help, please create some mockups for portrait mode
keyboard, but notice the menu/space/enter buttons on the bottom
are fixed and not defined by the keyboard layout xml. The
shift and backspace use a fixed size icon of 72x70 pixels.

@Nicolai - great job thanks a lot.

Some thoughts what layout shoul be used in portrait - IIRC there should be PORTAIT layout type definition, besides normal, thumb, etc. But even if there isn't, is there a problem to define it? AIUI SPECIAL layout is reserved for stuff like T-9 and such. I could be wrong of course.

Could you commit what is done so far, so I can play with it as well (if i find some spare time )

Looking at the imlayout_vkb.h, there isnt such a layout type:

#define LAYOUT_TYPE_NORMAL 0
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_SPECIAL 1
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_LARGE 3
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_THUMB 4
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_PINYIN 5
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_ZHUYIN 6
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_CANGJIE 7
#define LAYOUT_TYPE_STROKE 8

At least jonwils genvkb has to support this. And we have to test
if imlayout does read this in.

I'll do so. But I have to clean the code from some
intermediate tinkering.

nicolai

there is no "2" here . And this should be enum aiui, not defines. well, if it turns out we need to tweak imlayouts to support portrait, i'll RE it as well, after all it is better to waste some more time on that and have a consistent processing/definitions, but to "hack" it.

Also have a look at the screen modes:
"NORMAL"
"FULL"
"ROTATED"

It should be either of those to be used for portrait layout definition support. I refuse to believe Nokia has no support for portrait VKB in .vkb files .Maybe we should ask Jonwil for help.

No hurry

If finally a portrait virtual keyboard enters CSSU, it would be useful to add a portrait theme (mocking default one Fremantle one) to Conversations, otherwise it would be a bit useless.

I know, anyone can install such mod by himself, downloading it from TMO, but that is far from ideal.

created a new branch for portrait mode support
https://www.gitorious.org/community-...tation-support

initial changes:

• set portrait mode support flag
• add orientation/size change listener
• adjust space button width

This doesn't use different layouts yet. But with the
smaller space button the landscape keyboard layout is
a bit more usable in portrait mode.

Yes baby, that is what I was talking about

Re mockups - there should be no need, I don't think we can invent anything better than this:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=23

I think it should be possible to keep current landscape layout and switch to opera layout for portrait. Or even better - to save even more space a single sliding key could be used for " . , ? ! ' " when in portrait.

or replicate Maliit vkb layout?

any screenshot?