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AppGameKit/AppGameKit Studio Showcase / Custom Keyboards: code and images

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Scraggle
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Posted: 30th Nov 2020 18:33 Edited at: 11th Jan 2021 06:18
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Update 11 Jan 2021 - New function and new keyboard
New function :
SetKeyboardColor(kb, r, g, b)
The new function allows you to set the colour of any keyboard but is most impressive on a white keyboard that is designed for colour changes. A new keyboard has been provided that demonstrates that perfectly. The scifi keyboard can be set to any colour with this function.

Feel free to use this as you wish.
Simply #include the keyboard.agc file into your own project, copy the images and text files to your media folder and away you go.
I've included a usage demo and commented the code, so it should be pretty easy to use.

There is also PSD files for the three keyboards so that you can easily adapt them to create your own.

Included:
Sci_Fi - The screenshots below demonstrate eight colour versions of the scifi keyboard. It is supplied in white only. Use the new function SetKeyboardColor() to change it to appear how you like it. There are two versions: One with a black background and the other with a transparent background.



Dark




Retro


Light

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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2020 20:43
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works well on windows but tried to broadcast to android where the keyboard never showed.
looking here:

and i expect this is not for mobile? or, am i missing something?
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Scraggle
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2020 00:30 Edited at: 3rd Dec 2020 00:34
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Strange!
It works perfectly for me on Windows, Android and ipad.
I'll have a look when I finish work.

That bit of code is there just so that the keyboard.agc file can be in my libs folder and not necessarily in the project folder. If on mobile device it should be ignored and the keyboard images loaded from the project media folder.
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Scraggle
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2020 15:57 Edited at: 3rd Dec 2020 16:46
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I see the problem.
It isn't in the keyboards.agc file it is in the main.agc demo project

in main.agc change this:

To this:


I've updated the RAR in the original post to reflect the changes
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James H
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Posted: 4th Dec 2020 00:20
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This is sweet, thanks
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James H
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Posted: 4th Dec 2020 16:42 Edited at: 4th Dec 2020 17:40
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Hi again, I've been playing around with this on an alcatel 8T tablet using the free mobile app and my phone as bluetooth keyboard(shouldnt be an issue?), as my PC access is extremely limited due to personal circumstances. Unfortunately none of the keys match up as though the top row is the middle and the middle as the lower in terms of the output. Fortunately I noticed it became "fixed" by remming out the line setimmersivemode(true). I am also limited with my internet access so unable to view help files as the mobile app does not have offline help...my PC access is timetabled(by me for electric cost) so when I can afford to switch it on I will copy help from my AppGameKit installation over to my tablet. In the mean time I don't know what that command does.

Like I say I am just playing around atm, but noticed 2 more things
1. The upper/lower return key does not appear to be linked back to show the instruction to "click the mouse to open the keyboard"...however the numerical pad return key does link back. So how does one do this? Is it a case of altering the other source file? This is based on no alterations to code other than remming out the immersive line mentioned above.

2. I can make the keyboards fade in/out, except the upper version...it does not show up at all on screen at the programs start... as though it has started with the fade out alpha of/to zero....it is invisible but I can still make keystroke inputs by guessing their respective positions. This is same for slide, but pop and bounce seem ok. All I have done is copy the 4 lines that set the numeric pad for fade and paste twice this section, changing the entries exactly as you might expect for upper/lower references. Now the weird thing here is that if I guess the positions to switch to lower or numeric succesfully the correct kb appears and navigating back to upper kb is fine! Not only that but the return key issue I previously touched on suddenly is not an issue!

This is as far as I have got because, well, have you tried coding with the app on a tablet with a phone?!! I think they should come up with a better version and include it for either classic or studio owners because I cannot even copy/paste text between it and other applications....otherwise I would offer up the minor code changes as a snippet but instead I would have to type it all out which would defeat the point!

So I am guessing the issue has to be something to do with how this system is initialised? Just a guess of course. I apologise if I have not explained this very well, I have tried to explain it in the order of how I have attempted to use it.

kindest Regards


EDIT
So you might wanna ignore what I said because I figured out setting it prior to main loop as pop and then on pointer click set to fade it shows up and no keystroke alignment issues present even with immersive mode set to true...kb's do dissapear on using return ie can type again but is invisible based on which kb was previuosly present. So I would say I need to detect changes and then set values again accordingly, ie it is down to my usage rather than buggy behaviour? I shall play around a whole lot more and if I still have issues will post back. What I would say is a slightly different demo code MIGHT be a good idea for android users at least...just a passing thought really.
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Scraggle
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Posted: 4th Dec 2020 20:33
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From what I understand after reading all that, including the edit, everything is fine and the only thing you don't understand is what the command setimmersivemode() does.

setimmersivemode(1) turns off the screen overlay on Adnroid phones. The thing at the bottom of the screen with home and back buttons on it. If you leave that visible then there's a chance that it could get in the way of the lower keys.
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James H
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Posted: 4th Dec 2020 22:40 Edited at: 5th Dec 2020 01:36
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Hi Scraggle I did in the end use the online help to discover as you have described...so I removed the project from my device and started over just in case the free app version was to blame such as compiling from previous edits. It made no difference.

If I run the code prior to the update you made for Virtual Nomad I see most of the kb image but not all and keystrokes output alignment is normal for those keys I can see. With the update the kb image is perfect but there is no output for keys in top row...instead it is as if the key alignment from before the update is in existence invisibly. remming the immersive line out fixes this. The only other change made was to add if getrawkeystate(32) then end....this is because I am compiling on device and to return to the editor I need to escape the program or else I have to kill the entire process which naturally kills the editor, so I can just hit the spacekey on my phones bluetooth kb to get back to the IDE.

So I have then rechecked what I wrote under point 1 in my previous post. No change. When I hit the return key on either upper or lower case kb's the kb is no longer present, the txt string does not get cleared and the msg to click to see the keyboard does not show and neither is the ability to get the kb back exist. However, the numeric kb works just fine when pressing return. If I change the numeric kb to "pop" and add lines to set upper/lower kb's to "pop" (prior to main loop), all kb return keys fail to clear txt string and the kb dissappears with no means to get it back. Printing the kbactivekeyboard value to screen shows the value remains the same on hitting return key based on which kb was in use ie 0 1 or 2.

With regards to point 2 and my edit...now I am not so sure. The functions look like they should be set once and then not changed again? At this point I am asking is the above expected behaviour? Will I have to parse the string between frames and look for some sort of carriage return value then set the kb back up ie setkbactive x, true? How would I determ8ne the carriage return as a value?

Unless I am making a really obvious error then perhaps leave me to it to find out the way I am supposed to!!! Chances are I am being an idiot and jumping the gun so to speak. I will get back to you whether I work this out or not...compiling on device is slow progress due to its limitations, might take a day without help files as well. We shall see. So for now at least, just ignore me!


EDIT it would appear that all I needed was KB_keyboardReturnType ie when checking pointer click add OR condition to test for value 1 then force it to value 0 where the txt is cleared. Haven't got fade to work properly yet but it is probably my usage. on occasion it dissapears visually
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Scraggle
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Posted: 5th Dec 2020 20:23 Edited at: 5th Dec 2020 20:24
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Quote: "Haven't got fade to work properly yet but it is probably my usage"

No, it isn't you.
If you fade out the keyboard but use another method to bring it back then the alpha value remains at zero so it is invisible. That's my oversight.
I've updated the original post with the fix, but to save you from downloading the whole thing again you can insert the line below into line 331 of keyboards.agc
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James H
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Posted: 5th Dec 2020 21:54 Edited at: 6th Dec 2020 03:13
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Hi again Scraggle...your really going to get a dislike for me lol! I did as you state but it appears to mess things up where the fade is concerned...too much sporadic behaviour to describe in order of occurrence in detail but generally speaking it mostly forces the upper kb to over ride the lower and no fade transition takes place other than to switch to numeric...that said after a few transitions between numeric and upper/lower I get 2 kbs on screen visibly.

What I would like to suggest at this point is that it really might well be my usage mixed with expected behaviour...quite possibly because I am using the free app, looking at the immersive commands behaviour I think something is going on under the hood that differs between hardware and also similar hardware with different variant of OS ie Android. Obviously it runs fine on your Android device with the code you updated for Virtual Nomad. On my device it acts differently...I have to set up upper/lower kb as pop or whatever or the kb alignment is off...effectively it "appears" to be initialising the "code system" you created. To not initialise in this manner will only work if I rem out the immersive command. So the pop transition for all works entirely fine with all of the minor code changes I have detailed.

At this point I half expect to see different behaviour if I was to broadcast from PC or run on PC with the hardware/software setups that I have. To that end I am going to have my PC on tomorrow for the full 24 hours....I have saved on electricity all week and so this shall be my reward! I have 2 phones... a Galaxy J3 and J4+ as well as my tablet and PC so will test on all...comparing results between compiling on and running from devices and PC, broadcasting to both Android and Windows players and finally running from installations directly on devices.

By my reckoning I should be able to figure this all out once on PC as this free app is very difficult to use...no debugger, copy/paste issue between apps, having to scroll manually as no separate function/label list etc not to mention being able to see everything more or less on 1 screen or the fact I cant seem to get used to various other things that cost time. In essence the free apps use is better suited to small volumes of code in terms of simplicity and viewing "the big picture" so to speak.

In fact I am looking forward to it btw it has occurred to me that we have actually met in Leeds 2007...you where sat near GG I think. Pointless but fun fact!

EDIT
Okay so i switched on my PC, tested across devices/players/installs and the behaviour is the same across all of them
Have tried with the change you suggested as well.
So the small changes I have made to the main.agc code:


With or without that line of code change on line 331 of keyboard.agc the first thing you will note is the kb is invisible after becoming active for the first time. If you guess where the keys are to change keyboard and manage to click there successfully it does kick in and start working. Now even if you leave out the changes I made in the main loop, the invisibility problem at the start is still present, this is also the case for the change to line 331 of the keyboard.agc edit you suggested.
I believe however that you are correct to focus on the alpha value, it is almost as though for the first instance the values are somehow flipped or not even initiated at all. I can't pretend to know exactly how the hide/show routines work for fade/slide but I can see that in both cases the transition-out constants are used in the show function whereas the bounce option uses transition-in. Perhaps this is purposeful as I can also see the use of tween-out but not tween-in. I did mess around with those but could not get anything viable from them even with the ranges flipped. At this point I decided to look no further as I clearly do not understand the system.
Now ASSUMING my usage is not to blame...the second thing you will notice is that on using kblower or kbnumeric return keys(and kblower hide kb key), the kbupper sprite is once again invisible when we pointer-click.

***I am aware that in the pointer-click test of main loop the kbupper ONLY is being set to active, my plan was to use the flags to determine which kb was last in use and to return control back to that kb when keyboard input is next required as one option, and the other option to always return to kbupper(I was thinking along the lines of a sprite icon of a keyboard to control and simply split the sprite down the middle visually so if you click left side of icon you get option 1 and right side option 2, with some sort of highlight showing which choice the mouse would hover over in windows or maybe on a device it highlights while being depressed for as long as the user holds said depression until released).***

So at this stage I am tired and need my sleep, any further attempts by me will result in going around in circles i didn't even know existed!!! Cheers
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Scraggle
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Posted: 7th Dec 2020 00:02 Edited at: 10th Jan 2021 22:17
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It took me a while to replicate your issues but I found them and was able to fix them.
There is a new download in the top post. I've also included two new keyboards to play with.
Let me know if you find any other issues.

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James H
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Posted: 7th Dec 2020 00:58
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To be perfectly honest I thought that was pretty darn quick!

I have once again had to revert back to device compiling app so it may take me a while to fully test plus I will be job hunting for most of the day, every day from this point on. But I will definitely be working on testing this.

Once again thank you for your gift to the community it is very much appreciated Cheers
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James H
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Posted: 7th Dec 2020 22:46 Edited at: 8th Dec 2020 02:03
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Hi again,

It does have more related issues I am afraid...all I've done this time is just setup all the transitions defaults as before for each type.

When I exaggerate the speed values to 1.0 the issues become a lot more obvious. For POP things happen in an instant and so not testable as such but I suspect the same issues are at large except without an animated transition the frame or time so wouldn't be visibly detectable anyway.

So I have done 4 lots of testing on each of the provided keyboard styles. the styles do not appear to have any bearing here best I can tell and likely shouldn't given the nature of the results.
In each test except the default values/type test the only changes to your code where in the following format where XXXXXX is the only thing changed between the latter 3 tests and of course remming out your default example lines:



The results I was able to continually replicate are as follows;

Style Bounce(both with defaults set by me and me remming out those line so that its system default bounce as separate tests - the results appear exactly the same, it is just that with an none-exaggerated time frame ie speed values, some of the issues are far less noticeable):
slides in and bounces fine but slides out on pressing return or down kb key fine but has no bounce. When you point-click to get it back up, it pauses the speed value time then just appears in final position. Just keep open/closing from here and you can see it constantly re-occurs.
Switching between kb's mostly is fine except the time is about half maybe of the time it takes to get the kb from point clicking or hiding away after return/kb down key.
If however you ever put either of the none upper kb's away using its own return key(s) and point-click them back up again and continue to switch between the upper kb and the one that was put away, the switching speed time value becomes affected to double and of course loss of animation and kb just appears in final position.
If you open kb at start, then continually click very quickly the right shift key to toggle so that the kb's toggle a good number of times, then without stopping continually click while moving onto the return key above...the kb will close and NOT open again until you stop clicking.

Style Slide
sprite pops into existence right away on first point-click then immediately disappears again before continue correct transition. Slides out fine. When you point-click to get it back up, it pauses the speed value time then just appears in final position.Just keep open/closing from here and you can see it constantly re-occurs.In fact its all extremely similar behaviour as to what i saw with bounce, just without the bounce.
If you open kb at start, then continually click very quickly the right shift key to toggle so that the kb's toggle a good number of times, then without stopping continually click while moving onto the return key above...the kb will close and NOT open again FULLY until you stop clicking - instead the animation of sliding is restarted over and over until you stop clicking, in fact you can control how far it slides open because until it reaches its last frame the clicking will control it.

Style Fade
Now this one is much much better behaved, well in some ways but then not in others...the timings of transitions are constant throughout as best I can tell. When the kb is first brought to screen the sprite does flash on/off screen with max alpha before to continue its transition from 0 to 255 as normal. If you put it away and bring it back again it is just fine, however if you put either lower/numeric away with return/kb down key, there is another flash of sprite when bringing it back up again and then continues the transition as normal.
if you open kb then switch to lower, hit return then bring kb back up again, then repeatedly hit shift to toggle then the transition time is almost instant!

Style POP
As i mentioned earlier the issues aren't visibly detectable due to nature of instant transition. So for anyone still wanting to use this project I see no reason why it can't be used in this style. It seems more than solid enough for the basic purpose of having a decent kb across devices, this alone is a big step.
I tried to break POP but couldn't...although there is time yet!

So with some of that behaviour across the tests a user might not do stuff as I have(like point-click so fast) and I probably wouldn't have the timing so exaggerated either, that's why I think POP should be pretty solid/reliable to use.

Have tested on windows and android tablet only. Need to be a scrooge with my electricity again but I expect the exact same results on j3/j4+ phones.

Sorry if all that seems disheartening but i figure these issues are likely to crop up with end users anyway so better to find out now.

I can't attempt to play around with it any further for today on PC, if I spot anything of significance while using my tablet I will let you know. Cheers

Edit
One minor issue, easy fix, comma and full stop don't work so in each keyboard_styles folder in the upper.info.txt file, change the 6th and 7th lines from the end so that < and > read as , and .
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Scraggle
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Posted: 10th Dec 2020 20:24
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Thanks for the feedback.
I will have time to fix it on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
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Scraggle
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Posted: 13th Dec 2020 02:06 Edited at: 13th Dec 2020 02:07
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Fixed all reported issues and an additional one I found when changing the size of the keyboard.
I've also added an additional transition state (Overshoot).

The download is in the first post.
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James H
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Posted: 14th Dec 2020 16:30
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Windows.exe - no issues, however using broadcast with Windows player x86 or x64 - it does not accept kb string filename
***its worth pointing out here that this occurs with previous versions of custom keyboards project...although I could have sworn the earliest version I had working fine when it was first produced, but I must be mistaken***

The error msg states:

KB_LoadKeyboard()
called with invalid keyboard filename

raw:C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/App Game kit 2/Players/Windows//media/keyboard_upper

The same error msg repeats 2 more times for lower and numeric kb's

Then when broadcast on device (or compiled/run via device app) there are issues:

Pop
Seems ok

Slide
When switching between kb's the end of the scroll transition appears to show the kb stuck at the bottom for a number of frames without ever fully closing(the "stuck" image interrupts the visual flow of the transition making it appear to hang, but then the image appears to make an immediate switch to the next kb)
when closing any kb using return or down keys, the same occurs - but instead of making immediate switch to a new kb image it pops out of existence


Fade
there is a line of pixels apparent at bottom of screen most of the time, probably a second kb image - sometimes during fade out part of transitions this does disappear

Bounce
when switching between kb's the end of the scroll transition appears to show the kb stuck at the bottom for a number of frames without ever fully closing(the "stuck" image interrupts the visual flow of the transition making it appear to hang, but then the image appears to make an immediate switch to the next kb)
this is NOT the case when putting kb away using return key or down key

Overshoot
when switching between kb's the end of the scroll transition appears to show the kb stuck at the bottom for a number of frames without ever fully closing(the "stuck" image interrupts the visual flow of the transition making it appear to hang, but then the image appears to make an immediate switch to the next kb)
this is NOT the case when putting kb away using return key or down key

HOWEVER it is important to note that the above issues do not exist if the setscissor command is removed - so not as bad as it initially seems?
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Scraggle
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Posted: 15th Dec 2020 00:11 Edited at: 15th Dec 2020 00:39
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I don't see any of those issues on my PC, iPad or Android phone so you might think it would be difficult to fix.
However, since they only occur with the SetSpriteScissor() command in place, the fix is easy.

SetSpriteScissor() is only necessary if you use the SetKeyboardPosition() or SetKeyboardSize() commands. Realistically, who would ever need a keyboard that wasn't positioned at the bottom of the screen and sized to fit the width?
So I removed those functions - problem solved.
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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 15th Dec 2020 01:18
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checking in to report that the latest version now broadcasts fine to my android phone.

this will provide a work-around for this issue until its fixed (not verified as a bug, myself) or a nice alternative KB.

thanks for sharing!
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James H
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Posted: 16th Dec 2020 22:59
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No change my end I'm afraid. I have changed setscissor(0,0,0,0) for SetScissor(GetScreenBoundsLeft(),GetScreenBoundsTop(),GetScreenBoundsRight(),GetScreenBoundsBottom()) and everything works again which is also true of previous version... all that is except the other issue I mentioned, when you broadcast to windows players - it still throws same error...which is this part of the keyboard.agc;



So am guessing windows player has some other result like it says it does for android in help file for getreadpath()? I couldn't help notice at this point there's no checks for android ie its aimed more for windows and mac devices, or am I missing something?
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Scraggle
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Posted: 17th Dec 2020 08:41
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To get the error message that you are getting means that it can't find the info.txt file with the same name as the keyboard.
Have you ensured that you've named them correctly and saved them both int he same folder?
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James H
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Posted: 17th Dec 2020 20:51
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Nah it was the first error for png, besides I hadn't changed any file names or created any new ones...turns out it was as I suggested I think - as there is no checks for android I just remmed out the string creation. Works fine on both windows players now.
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James H
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Posted: 7th Jan 2021 10:21
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Congrats on making the newsletter
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Scraggle
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Posted: 7th Jan 2021 19:28
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That's very cool
I'll celebrate by making a new design available and post it here this weekend.

Any requests?
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James H
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Posted: 8th Jan 2021 23:08
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Hmm how about an RGB keyboard?
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Scraggle
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RGB Keyboard?
That's one where you change the colour of individual keys right?
That's do-able but would require a complete overhaul of the code. I'd have to abandon pretty much all of it and start from scratch because right now I use a single image for the entire keyboard. An RGB keyboard would need individual sprites for each key. That may be an idea for a future update but not right now.
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James H
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Ah, I wasn't thinking of an animated one but just a plain static maybe along these lines
https://images.app.goo.gl/zHtLGtxvyJEY6qBJ9
https://images.app.goo.gl/RA5RpZ3QZFyVrZx29
https://images.app.goo.gl/skzWZTEfdz2DTbfB7
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Scraggle
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Joined: 10th Jul 2003
Location: Yorkshire
Posted: 9th Jan 2021 03:34
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I think they would look good animated but when they are static they just become boring keyboards with random coloured keys.
I like the idea though, so I will probably add support for it at some later date. For now though I think I will adapt the green sci-fi one that I posted an image of earlier. That one is entirely my own creation so no need to concern myself with copywrite infringement.
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James H
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Posted: 10th Jan 2021 14:13
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Sweet, looking forward to it...yeah I hadn't put much thought into an RGB kb!
Win 7 Pro 64 bit SP1, AMD A4-5300 APU 3.4GHz, 8GB DDR3, NVidia GeForce GTX 750 1GB GDDR5, ASUS A55BM-E
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Scraggle
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Posted: 11th Jan 2021 00:35
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A new keyboard is available in the first post.
It comes in two versions. One with a black background and the other with a transparent background.
The keyboard is white but can be changed to any colour desired by using the new function SetKeyboardColor(kb, r, g, b)
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James H
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Posted: 14th Jan 2021 16:53
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Nice one, I haven't tested extensively...no real need at this stage? Looks cool, I haven't tested with a background though, but again am pretty sure there's no real need to at this point, good stuff Only one point of note - the address for the media is wrong as it details a "white" folder between the scifi and the clear/black_back folders, presumably residual from your own tests. As alluded to earlier I had no clue on RGB being a trademark, in fact it had never occurred to me that individual colours themselves can be trademarked! I have a cheap skate kb and mouse with lighting named "avenger" with a red/blue/"purpley" range of colour cycles and a separate large kb/mouse mat that also has colour cycles(significantly more colours and options) and I had always assumed they where a form of RGB! ( Well they are really, I mean our screens are based on RGB so to me it all came under RGB so I was ignorant to trademarks). Now some of the PCMR jokes on FB now make sense lol! Cheers for this
Win 7 Pro 64 bit SP1, AMD A4-5300 APU 3.4GHz, 8GB DDR3, NVidia GeForce GTX 750 1GB GDDR5, ASUS A55BM-E
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Scraggle
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Posted: 16th Jan 2021 20:18
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You've misunderstood me.
RGB isn't affected by copyright, it's just the initial letters of Red, Green and Blue.
The fact that you had previously mentioned RGB keyboards and I then created a keyboard whose colour can be changed is entirely coincidental. and has nothing to do with RGB.

The copyright issue that I was referring to was with some of the keyboard images that I had previously posted (wood, stone, cartoon etc.), I didn't post all 3 keyboards of each type, nor did I post the info.txt file for them because they used commercial graphics. I then realised that you could still use the image and the info.txt file of another keyboard and use the uppercase only keyboard. That would have been a copyright violation and that is why I have removed the images. The new sci-fi one I posted above is entirely my own creation and I am giving it away without license. Do with it what ever you please.
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