[K3] Physical keyboard localization

[dsmid]

I'm happy your Kindle is usable again
Remember that Shift-Space shortcut is the switcher, should you need to type any of those characters (w,a,x,d,s).

[telharmonium]

Copy that! I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to ask: would it be possible for me to install KindleNote (or other programs?) Or would doing this undo your physkbd hack? Just asking.

[dsmid]

You can install anything you want. Physkeyb will stay untouched unless you uninstall it.

[Artik]

dsmid, thank you for updating the keyboard hack for 3.4, the basic functionality works like a charm!
I was wondering whether you could implement some of the latest changes Sir Alex did to his hack. As far as I understand, he didn't post this version to each and every forum he frequents, particularly, probably not here. But anyway, here's the difference:

Your version appears to be able to act in two distinct ways:
1)when keyboard-european.txt is present, the main layout is the original one, while the additional symbols are typed in via double-presses (a feature you implemented previously). Shift-space in this case serves as a hotkey to enable Voice Guide, a feature introduced in 3.4
2)when only keyboard.txt is present, shift-space is used to alternate between two separate one-press layouts, the double-press feature is disabled.

Now, what Sir Alex, as I understand, did after your double-press patch was that he made it work simultaneously with shift-space switch. This allowed the user to have both, say, European layout on double-presses over Latin layout, as well as Cyrillic as a separate shift-space layout. For this version only one file config.txt was used to define all the three layouts.

I'll attach this version and config file (although the latter can be extracted from the bin, I guess).

Also, is it possible to remap the layout switch to, say, alt-space, or alt-shift, so as not to cut the Voice Guide hotkey?

[Artik]

Sorry for double posting (to late to edit). Just noticed the new version is able to switch layout in browser withouth the need to bring up sym menu! Thanks, dsmid!

[dsmid]

Artik, I'm afraid I won't be able to modify Sir Alex' physkeyb 0.08 because Sir Alex has never published the source code.
I was able to fork version 0.04 because it was easy to to decompile.

Now both versions (mine and Sir Alex') are simply too far from each other but I will try to decompile 0.08 and I'll see what I can do.

Unfortunately Sir Alex doesn't believe in the open source development model, it would be nice to cooperate in this particular case.

[Artik]

Thanks for taking the time. I guess my input would be pretty much useless here, but off the top of my head one thing I noticed different in your jars and his was calling to different... subfunctions (I'm not sure that's a proper name) - those things that are loaded at the beginning from the framework and have names ending in ".a" ".b" ".c". Anyway, I asked him on a forum where he specifically mentioned that "it's time for someone to step in my place, since I'm now into Kindle 4&5" for sources, but he doesn't appear there too often and I don't think his inbox allows PMs. He also seems to have an ICQ, which I'll PM you.

[dsmid]

No need to contact Sir Alex now, I was able to implement the desired features myself.

New version 3.4.3 is available:

Version 3.4.3:
- Double-presses and alternative layout can be used together now
- Layout switch shortcut changed to Shift-Enter to avoid conflict with voice
  guide
- Any text can be used as a value in keyboard_european.txt, useful for
  inserting long texts with a double-press
- Label is displayed at the bottom of the screen when switching layout
  or disabling/enabling double-press mode.
  The default label is 'en' for the default layout (keyboard-european.txt,
  followed by * if double-press is enabled or - if disabled with .q sequence)
  and 'alt' for the alternative layout.
  You can define your own label in keyboard-european.txt (supposed to be
  2 characters long) and keyboard.txt (supposed to be 3 characters long,
  pad with spaces if needed):
    label=rus

[Artik]

Originally Posted by dsmid

New version 3.4.3 is available:

That is simply brilliant!

[PoP]

Originally Posted by dsmid

New version 3.4.3 is available:

Karma to you, works as a charm!

If anyone is interested attached is my fr keyboard-european to enter french accented characters and my FWY switchable keyboard where I have added the entry "#k104" to turn to next page by pressing the space bar while reading a book.

Oh, the accents are mapped to be the qwert keys (respectively for acute, circumflex, grave, umlaut, tilde) you press the accent key followed by the letter to get the accented letter (ex qe to get é, tn to get ñ)

[PoP]

Et... Joyeux Norel ea tous!

[Konst]

sorry for my english
Mr. Dsmid, your work is very good, but absolytely non-used in russian. For tape 1 letter on doubles, I need a) press shift-enter b) make double press c) press shift-enter and only after this 6 (!) steps I can tape next letter. In russian we have 33 letters!
Christ God beg you! Made something for contemporaneously (sic!) using doubles and non-latin letters!

[dsmid]

Hi Konst,

Thanks for you comments. I just implemented what Artik requested, maybe I misunderstood his post.

I hope the new version 3.4.4 will satisfy your needs:

Version 3.4.4:
  - The configuration is unified now, it can contain single-press keys
    as well as double-press keys, both work at the same time
  - The value can contain #-prefixed keycodes as well as strings for
    both key types
  - The config key can be a java keycode now (prefixed with #), useful
    for redefining special buttons
  - There can be up to 9 keyboard layouts, named <name>.kbd
  - For the sake of backward compatibility, keyboard-european.txt as
    well as keyboard.txt are valid keyboard definition file names
  - Special '.q' shortcut has been removed. * or - is not appended to
    label anymore. Labels are supposed to be three characters wide in
    all cases. Default labels are the first three letters of the keyboard
    definition file name

[dsmid]

The newly added README:

Physkeyb
--------

A booklet that is able to redefine Kindle 3 keyboard layout.

There can be up to nine layouts switchable by Shift-Enter shortcut.
A layout label appears in the bottom right corner of the screen when switched.
The keyboard definition files are stored in the keyboard folder and have a .kbd
extension. Filenames keyboard-european.txt and keyboard.txt are accepted as well
to ensure backward compatibility.

A .kdb file can contain multiple key-pairs:

<key>=<value>

<key> can be a special option or a Kindle 3 keyboard key definition

Special options:

        timeout - Timeout for double-press in miliseconds. If two keys are
                  pressed consequently within this time interval, they are
                  considered to present a double-press.

        enabledonstart
         or
        default - The layout with this option set to true will be active after
                  the Kindle framework startup.

        label   - The label that appears in the bottom right corner of
                  the screen when the layout is switched to.
                  Should be three characters wide, pad with spaces if necessary.
                  Set to the first three letters of the layout file name if not
                  specified.

Key definition:

        A single character representing the button
                  The character will be substitued by <value> when corresponding
                  button is pressed.
                  Example:
                    s=š

        Two characters representing the buttons
                  Any input of character 1 followed by input of character 2
                  within timeout will be replaced by <value>.
                  Example:
                    aA=me@home.org

        An integer prefixed with #
                  Java keycode of the button. Useful for redefining special
                  buttons like PageNext.
                  Tip: Turn the debug mode on by creating an empty file named debug
                  in the keyboard folder, restart Kindle, press the button of
                  interest and then find the keycode value in
                  keyboard/keyboard.log .
                  Example:
                    #33=You pressed Keypad Up key


Value definition:

        A string
                  The string contents will be substitued as input instead of <key>

        #<target flag><key code>
                  Low level key event definition.
                  Examples:
                    w=#f103
                      - Send code 103 (Up) to /proc/fiveway when key W is pressed
                    o=#v114
                      - Send code 114 (Volume-) to /proc/volume when key O is pressed
                    f=#k191
                      - Send code 191 (RightNextPage) to /proc/keypad when key F is pressed

                  See https://github.com/dpavlin/k3libre/blob/master/myts/keydefs.ini



Tip: If you have a single layout and don't want it to be active on start, create
     another layout, name it for example kindle.kbd and put this inside:

enabledonstart=true
label= en

     Such empty layout would represent the default Kindle layout.


See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119969 for updates.


David Smid (dsmid)

[PoP]

Originally Posted by dsmid

...
I hope the new version 3.4.4 will satisfy your needs
...

It does, and now works better than ever. Thanks.

I played with the unicode character set and extended my fr keyboard into a comprehensive acc keyboard which I think is more intuitive to enter accented characters in any language: though, not all unicode are properly rendered by the K3 fonts.

I also went overboard with the inv keyboard, just for fun. , hope twobob likes it as much as I do

Find my keyboard collection below: