Maybe consider adjustments to fully support TV remotes (and possibly other devices)? #483
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Dani3I
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Dani3I
changed the title
Well, how did you activate Traditional T9 in the first place? You must have visited TT9 Settings -> Initial Settings. From the same place, but by going to Keypad -> Hotkeys you can reassign the function keys and use something else than Arrow keys are also supported on any device without extra configuration, but they are used to select suggestions or filter them. Basically, all that you have requested is already there, except for the "navigation" mode, but I don't think it is necessary, if you can type with the number keys. Btw, QinBoard-T9 is a Traditional T9 clone. Both projects started from the original TT9 project. QinBoard is still largely based on the old codebase with some optimizations to work on the Qin 1s phone and extended emoji support. But the general typing experience should be almost the same with both keyboards. I am not sure what is the full screen text box you are referring to. |
When I type using tt9, text appear inside textbox that is showed by app I am writing inside. For example google textbox like this:
I must admit, I am sorry, I don't know how I even did it, but I didn't noticed this option and I searched for it 2 or 3 times. Anyway, I tested it on my 2 TV's and unfortunately it seems that Volume Up and Volume Down keys are exclusive to managing Volume (even when I add them as hotkeys, these are still working as volume buttons and are not doing things that I assigned them for). Channel keys probably will be usable so it certainly helps, thank you. I noticed that Volume buttons do not have hold variants, will these have that? I am not sure If you will be doing more buttons or allowing customs buttons to map, but I tried both of my remotes in super tux kart to test which keys can I assign and here are simple tables: Remote 1:
Although something wired happens and when I close game and reopen it, then this input device is not detected anymore and only some keys are recognized as keyboard: numbers, arrows, OK button (as "Return"). Also play/pause button is recognized but as "?". Probably also back button works as "esc" because it closes window to assign keys. And only after full reboot, buttons are recognized as before (as gamepad buttons etc.) and are not recognized as keyboard. On this remote "Rec" button is in place of "#" button, and other closest button would probably be "Channel down button". Remote 2:
On this remote "TTX" button is in place of "#" button, and "INFO" button is in place of "*" button. |
Ugh, okay, so it isn't going to be so easy. It seems that, some of the buttons on the remotes, do not correspond to their actual Android functions. They probably did that, to prevent each remote from working with another TV. Here is the actual key code list for reference. As you can see the codes do not quite match your remotes. I can see even OK and Back are mismatched. Do they work properly in QinBoard? I guess the only may of making TT9 compatible with any TV (or any device, for that matter), would be to allow full customization of the hotkeys, like in a game. It shouldn't be so difficult, but there are many other tasks in the pipeline, so it may take quite some time until I can get to this.
I didn't get that. What is a "standard keyboard" and is there a problem with these keys? Both the regular number keys and the numpad keys are available on a standard keyboard, and TT9 supports both.
I am almost 100% sure this is not part of QinBoard, but it is probably triggering your TV to do it. However, at the moment, there are some startup issues with TT9, that are going to be fixed in the next version. Let's wait until it is out and see if it works better. |
There isn't any problem with numbers on tt9 (both TV remotes number pads are working). On my TV's list looks a little different, but only devices wchich keys can be recognized in suppertuxkart are: my TV-remote and "Keyboard 0". "Keyboard 0" device is recognizing numbers, and rest of keys are recognized by TV-remote device (which btw. have icon of gamepad like "Serafim S1" on screenshot)
I am not sure what is proper way of working, but "OK" works like "enter" and "Back" works like "backspace" If I remember correctly.
I am just speculating, and probably what you said is true, but maybe this might be a problem of supertuxkart way of showing information?
It might be even less important (for me), because when I finally test "KeyMapper" properly, it might become a solution to me. It seems to support key mapping per app (so maybe I would be able to map some keys only in tt9). For now I don't know yet if app will be able to work with things "not fullscreen" like keyboard; also If it will continue to work after sleep/reboot on my TV - and I only tested recognition of some keys and only inside "KeyMapper" app. Another "problem" is that that development of "KeyMapper" stopped and they are looking for maintainers, so I am not sure if this would work on newer devices than mine. If you want, when I will have access to TV's again, I can test these TV remotes in other app. |
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That's a lot of information! But first things first, v30.0 is out, so please try it out and let me know if it works better. If you are using F-droid, you may need to wait until the end of the week. I can see they haven't detected it yet. As for the game, I have no idea why is it displaying joysticks and keyboards like this. You may be better of using the KeyMapper app, indeed.
Correct. My question is, do they work any differently (or are they ignored?) with QinPad or Traditional T9? And second question, how do you control QinPad (e.g. change the language or switch between 123, ABC or predictive mode), if it also requires "#" and "*" keys? |
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As far as I remember clicking "back" key in tt9 just leaves app I am typing in (or maybe first closes keyboard) even when I assigned it as hothey in settings; and Ok key seemed to work as intended in tt9, so I can accept suggestions and when there is not suggestions it works like enter. I wasn't able to switch modes and languages in QinBoard duiring typing (only in settings). I won't be able to test anything on TV until next week (around Thursday) - so I will tell you in more details then (and check if what I said in this comment is correct). |
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Sorry for longer time than I said in previous message.
(*)QuinBoard when clicking "Back" is removing character and only when there is no characters left it closes keyboard (tt9 just closes keyboard, but now when I assign back button (because now assigning "back" works) it works the same way). QuinBoard when clicking "OK" is closing keyboard which is probably not desired because I can't actually "send" text in some apps (I can't click on that search button that is visible on one of the screenshots I send before) - meanwhile tt9 (if there is no suggestion to accept) just "sends" text (so clicking OK actually invokes searching). And I also confirm that I wasn't able to switch modes and languages in QinBoard duiring typing as I wrote in previous comment. When it comes to newer version of tt9, I installed current newest version (v31): channel buttons are working so that is great. I can assign them on both TV remotes. When I assign back button now also is doing the action I assigned it to so that's great. Volume buttons are not working. If someone wonders about KeyMapper: I cannot just assign TV remote buttons to "*" or "#" because KeyMapper works in a way that it uses its own keyboard to type these characters (so I would need to use keyboard (KeyMapper keyboard) to use another keyboard (tt9), which is not possible - or I don't know how to do it other way) BUT, I can instead assign buttons on TV Remote to make "touch" screen in certain coordinates. It works, but unfortunately I can only make it globally (so when I click assigned buttons on TV remote - it clicks in these positions of the screen even when I am not typing) because adding constraint in KeyMapper to make it work only when tt9 is in background, makes it actually work all the time (so I guess tt9 is always in background), and If I tried instead adding constraint in KeyMapper to make it work only when tt9 is in foreground - it stops working entirely (so I guess keyboard is not considered by android as foreground app when typing in android; or It doesn't work on TVs). And here I also modified previous tables to show how KeyMapper recognizes keys on my TVs: Remote/TV 1:
Remote/TV 2:
EDIT: I edited sections about back button because either there is some inconsistency and sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't. Or I just configured/tested something wrongly (I still have some wired behaviour but only in play store so idk). Now back button seems to work (when I assign it to "backspace" it works). |
Some applications can capture the Back key presses and use them for their own purposes, effectively preventing any keyboard from deleting text. This may be the reason it sometimes works as expected, but sometimes it doesn't. For this reason, I have added the possibility to assign the Backspace function to another key. See the manual for more info.
OK, the KeyMapper app makes more sense. I recommend not using Supertux Kart for probing the remote control keys.
This sounds right. OK either selects a suggestion or performs the expected action (e.g. sending the text).
I am not sure why is that. You didn't include them in the tables above, so I can't comment. Now that you have provided the results from KeyMapper, I can add support for Mute, the colored keys and maybe some other standard keys, if you think that would be useful. This is to compensate for the missing * and #. If Back misbehaves in some apps, you would be able to re-assign it from TT9, too. Other than that, it sounds to me that TT9 is working fine. Or am I missing something? |
This is because these buttons only always change the volume and are not recognized by KeyMapper.
These keys seems to be fairly common, and could be useful if someone would want to assign other hotkey actions to some keys or if in someones layout these buttons are closer to numpad; but for me personally, this is not necessary, channel keys should be enough for me. So it depends if you want to add them.
Yeah, I think so. Thanks for all responses and fixes. |
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OK, I will add support for some extra keys and close the issue then. |
App on TVs works fine except for the fact that most of TV remotes (or at my 2 remotes) don't have
*and#buttons (I tested with the help of mouse).Possible solutions I came up with:
*and#. It would be great If these keys worked as*and#only when typing by tt9. I found in you docs something about mapping but I guess this is inside of android settings and it apperas that these settings are not avaiable for my TV's (or at least not to TV remotes). Possibility to map keys have for example SuperTuX Kart game on android and it is open source, so maybe you can take code from there (although some keys are not allowed to remap for some rason).The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: