Notices

Hi all,

While having the portrait glitch running (braek), it seems the lower half of the screen is none responsive. So when launching uKeyboard, it works in the upper half, but a column of letters is missing (far right)........

However, if we can customize uKeyboard, to have the buttons a bit smaller......they'd fit in the upper half of the screen and we'd have a portrait keyboard.....

What do you think?

Can anyone atleast point me to a sample .vkb? I'm unable to open the ones in /usr/share/ukeyboard for some reason.....

Ok. Started experimenting. Turns out its the .def files I need to mess with, not the .vkb files.

I managed to squeeze all the letters in the functional area, kinda small....

Still trying to decipher the .def logic.

Hey Corse! Good job so far. I was actually wondering about something. Given the idea that we do not yet have full portrait support for SMS and email, how about developing a portrait layout for ukeyboard? I manage to do most things with one hand while slightly tilting the device, but typing with one hand is horrendous. If we simply create a portrait mode ukeyboard layout I think many of us can manage. The SMS/Conversations main window would remain in landscape, but once you click on the empty slot for typing text, the portrait virtual keyboard would appear (if selected as default in Settings). It does not even have to be all characters and symbols. Just the letters even! I would do it myself if I could, but I hardly have any recent programming knowledge to get by. What do you think? Thanks for your work anyways

Hey Corso.

For a clean, uniformed row with each key being the exact same size, each row should have either 5, 8 or 10 keys.

I'd love to help you out since I've been meaning to do the same thing as you're doing right now.

Just let me know.

Glad some interest came thru. I sorta gave up. I couldn't understand the language of the ukeyboard .def files. The custom def i made sorta worked, but the symbols didnt and it sorta caused the landscape ukeyboard to go bonkers....

What discouraged me was also the lack of interest. nobody for the longest time posted anything :P

I think Portrait ukeyboard should be one of the first apps to be worked on. it would help people solve so many problems....

I hear ya.

Made a post awhile back as well and didn't get so much as a dim flicker of recognition from anyone until I begged Javis to say something on this.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=44937

Well, I like making keyboards. I put together about 6 uniquely different layouts but only for Xkbd.

I've still got some good ideas left so I'll look into getting ukeyboard installed and see what all can be done with it.

My only real interest though is to have something nice that can be used with Dial Central.

How about this......

Python seems to be booming on the N900. lotsa amazing things have been made with it. How about a Portrait virtual keyboard Python script? we can have it running in the background. type in it and n maybe copy n paste from it to other apps?

might be more of a hassle though :P

Corso, Addison, everyone

a python keyboard in the background with a single 'copy all' button could be a very cool idea indeed. u simply press the copy all button after finishing writing and paste in ur message or email or whatever.

as for my idea, there is a VERY SIMPLE 2 way to get started. u could simply ROTATE all the existing bmp images which display the characters. in other words, replace the current bmp images with ones rotated 90 degrees to look normal in portrait. It's a start, but it works. it would of course be a separate virtual keyboard and would need to be manually chosen the same way u choose a second language virtual keyboard. it would take 2 hours tops to do though. same script attached to rotated images and saved under a new name. perhaps we should get the ukeyboard people involved.

come to think of it, that could be a very simple way to auto-portrait the entire ui, especially the dashboard. while keeping the backgrounds still, the icons would just auto-rotate when u rotate the device while staying in the same location.

thanks for being involved once more, thank u Corso for trying

Rotate.Py crashed the phone if you run it more than 10mins lol. It crashed mine and reboot itself because of something while i'm testing it with the applications. Yes portrait mode Keyboard would be handy and also the Web browser Portrait mode sux hard. It should have the option enable just like the Lanscape mode.