Author Topic: kArmTI - TI-Nspire emulator with skin (Read 457210 times)

Nick · « **Reply #60 on:** June 01, 2012, 03:36:41 pm »

fhub, the touchpad is a real touchpad like on a laptop. you can move the the mouse (cursor) like a real mouse on the pc, that's why it's called touchpad xp

khiconmtv · « **Reply #61 on:** June 01, 2012, 08:56:00 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 01, 2012, 03:49:00 pm

Quote from: Nick on June 01, 2012, 03:36:41 pm
fhub, the touchpad is a real touchpad like on a laptop. you can move the the mouse (cursor) like a real mouse on the pc, that's why it's called touchpad xp
Ok, thanks for the info.
Now I understand the requests for that feature too, but as I already said: it won't be easy to implement - although of course very useful, I agree

Video (see at 0:49")

SpiroH · « **Reply #62 on:** June 02, 2012, 04:21:31 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 02, 2012, 06:10:53 am

Hi SpiroH,
.....

Hi Franz & Co,

Maybe today we have some good news (for a change):
1. I've managed to dig into the emulator's touchpad code and have implemented the missing diagonal-arrowkeys movement support. So, now the touchpad=/K4 should also support them.
2. Why do I insist on using it? Because the 'touchpad proto' is not (well??) documented and is NOT fully compatible with the current touchpad we see on ti-nspire cx pictures.
Meaning, what you see above the keys, is NOT really what you get. That's not what we want.
3. As a bonus, i've also implemented some mouse right-click support to fire the 'blue-functions' above the keys, without having to press the 'ctrl'. It's quite handy.

I'll leave the code here for you to test and tell me if you like it.
SpiroH_V17: http://www.filedropper.com/spirohv17

Surely, I'll hear from you soon. Again, thanks for all your nice comments/reviews,
SpiroH

PS1. It's been around a week and we've made quite some progress...Yeah, sometimes 'small is really beautifull'.
PS2. Yes, I'll port 'these' improvements to kArmTI (asap) when i find the time, not this week for SURE.

Nick · « **Reply #63 on:** June 02, 2012, 04:38:45 pm »

so you actually changed the emulator itself?? ö nice work, glad you got it working after all your spent time

and that third one is genius! it's extremely useful, since that was one of the disaster things about such emulators (those [ctrl]/[2nd] keys), this will make it a lot more easy and friendly to use.

SpiroH · « **Reply #64 on:** June 02, 2012, 05:12:52 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 02, 2012, 04:52:46 pm

I've tried your right-click feature but unfortunately it's working very unreliable.

That's very weird indeed, because the implementation is rather simple! What system are you using? In my system it works flawlessly!

Quote from: fhub on June 02, 2012, 04:52:46 pm

And BTW, unlike yesterdays version I can't move diagonally now anmore by pressing 2 cursor buttons on the PC-keyboard, with v14 this still worked.

Why do you need to press 2 cursor buttons? Is that also a problem? Normally, that's not supposed to move diagonally! You need to assign a specific single key not 2.
Anyway, you can always stick to v14, if you prefer it, until these problems are sorted.
What about the diagonal arrowkeys? That's really the new thing but you didn't mention it? Did you try it?
Thanks,

SpiroH · « **Reply #65 on:** June 02, 2012, 05:56:28 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 02, 2012, 05:24:50 pm

Well, I'm using a usual netbook. Now I've even connected an external mouse, because usually I work with the internal mousepad and I thought maybe this mousepad-button (for right-click) would be the reason. But the problem exists also with the external mouse.

What i'm asking is what os (eg. win7/xp) and cpu frequency? Anyway, of course i believe you, but i'm positive it's a simple matter of adjusting some time delay. I'll surely look into it.
Everytime program delays are inserted, these need to be tested against several hardware platforms, before being released to "general machine". Of course, you know it!

Quote

The diagonal arrow-keys (I guess you mean with the mouse on the touchpad) are working fine, but this worked already with the version v14 yesterday, so that's not new in v17.

Yes, i meant the mouse on the touchpad (sorry about that). I didn't bother yet to assign keys to these diagonal movements, but i plan to do so.
The 'new' thing here is that in this version(v17) i'm using internally the touchpad=/k4 and not 'cheating around' with the 'touchpad prototype =/K3' to emulate the desired /K4.
What's really 'new' is that the nspire_emu code (v0.60) had to be a bit modified to support the diagonal movements for the /K4 keypad. And as i said earlier, /K4 is much better documented than (/K3), which is ' dead' and imho should only be used as a last resort.

I'll come back,

SpiroH · « **Reply #66 on:** June 02, 2012, 06:15:04 pm »

Quote from: Nick on June 01, 2012, 01:39:25 pm

i don't think you should waste your time on the diagonal keys.. you don't even need them anyway
it would be much more useful to get the mouse working (live on screen or the touchpad by e.g. right clicking on it), because then we could emulate it as we really do on the nspire
so i say, spend your time figuring out how to implement the mouse, instead of the diagonal arrowkeys

The intention is quite a good one, but that still requires quite some work to properly emulate the missing touchpad functionality.

Quote from: Nick on June 02, 2012, 04:38:45 pm

so you actually changed the emulator itself?? ö nice work, glad you got it working after all your spent time
and that third one is genius! it's extremely useful, since that was one of the disaster things about such emulators (those [ctrl]/[2nd] keys), this will make it a lot more easy and friendly to use.

Sometimes i just get too carried away with the code discussion that i simply forget to answer to kind remarks. I'm doing it now.

Thank you for nice comments and support,
SpiroH

SpiroH · « **Reply #67 on:** June 02, 2012, 06:41:08 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 02, 2012, 06:10:00 pm

OS is Win7-Starter, CPU is any Atom, frequency is 1.6GHz (I believe?), but if it's not too busy it automatically switches down to 1GHz (not sure about it without looking into the manual).
But I can't imagine that this speed would be of any interest!? Shouldn't this just be a simple matter of key-press/key-release events for the mouse button?

Thanks, I do think speed can be an issue. But, as I have a similar specs netbook, i can test it and report later.

Quote

I couldn't imagine which keys are still free (and make sense) for such an assigment.

Not in a netbook, for sure (simply use the mouse). But in a normal pc-keyboard you still have the 'numeric block' keypad keys. Just a thought.

Quote

Well, if /K3 works much better than /K4 (as it seems in v14), then I would say /K3 is the better choice.

I guess that's my fault that i couldn't explain why i do not support the /K3 solution. Firstly, I surely would prefer it because that would be the 'least effort' and most realiable solution (eg, no changes to the emulator's code). Unfortunately, not all keys and most notably key-functions available in /k4 also exist in /k3. As i said in a previous post, eg, the 'pad' had to be emulated by sending a 'ctrl'+ 'stuff' sequence. I don't want to do that for every function of /k4 that is missing in /k3. And i've noticed that there are quite a few. That's my justification, it's not just for the 'hell of it'

. Anyway, i do agree that when a solution works we should stick to it. However, it should only last until you have one that offers you better functionality. Hope to have that soon.

SpiroH · « **Reply #68 on:** June 03, 2012, 07:25:25 am »

Franz: I've been playing in my eeepc with v14 and i must admit the touch+feel while moving the cursor on the screen is so much better, faster and smoother than with the real touchpad /k4 driver. Basically this means that the /k3 emulation is much better. So, now i perfectly understand your point! Also /k3 is not a real touchpad but rather a keypad with some extra cursor keys. Totally different hardware (and emulation)!

Btw, before i made the switch back to /k4 (reasons i've explained before), i had already started experimenting the right-click functionality on a v15 (follow-up of v14) which i'm posting for you to have a go (here many functions-keys are still missing when compared to v17) . Let me know how it works for you. My tests on a eeepc 1000H (also win7/1.6GHz) seem to be satisfactory. Yes, you were correct about the right-click stability problems on the netbook. I will try to improve it. I'm afraid (?) we need to allow enough time for the emulator to complete the previous operation before interrupting and ask for a new one.

v15 (alpha right-click): http://www.filedropper.com/spirohv15
v17_2 (more stable?): http://www.filedropper.com/spirohv172

Thanks,

PS: Proceeding with v15 is always a possibility. So, i'll think it over, nothing is closed, but at some some point we need to make a decision for time is not elastic.

SpiroH · « **Reply #69 on:** June 03, 2012, 01:35:05 pm »

Quote from: fhub on June 03, 2012, 08:41:56 am

Ok, here are the results of my short tests:
...
So at the moment I can't really decide which version I like more: v14 is better for the touchpad usage and v17-2 has this very comfortable right-click feature.
A v14+v17 would definitely be the greatest!

Yeah, so do I. I'll do so more testing and when i have some free time I'll comeback. Right now, as in last sunday, i'm busy with exams, ach you know it, only so well, how long it takes...

Quote from: fhub on June 03, 2012, 08:41:56 am

BTW, I've found a strange behaviour when I use the 'off' function (ctrl+home/on):
it shows "Saving..." for a few seconds, and after this many functions don't work correctly anymore, e.g. the cursor-keys.

Nothing very 'strange', that's about 'normal' behaviour. We just assume the calculator is going 'off' that's why it is 'Saving' its current status to restore it when the 'on' key is pressed.
I wouldn't bother too much if the cursor keys seem to be working, that only means the 'off' state is not (yet) being properly detected. So, not to worry at this stage (cosmetic issues).

Thank you for all your tests,

ParkerR · « **Reply #70 on:** June 04, 2012, 07:36:32 am »

I can't get v15 or v17 to load my image. I put in this for the command line "/1=boot1.img /F=flash.img" and when I click "Ok" it starts to load then crashes. Windows 7 64bit if that makes a difference. TI-Nspire OS 3.1 CX Loads fine in nspire_emu with the same parameters.

Edit: So many spelling errors.

ParkerR · « **Reply #71 on:** June 04, 2012, 08:16:43 am »

Quote from: fhub on June 04, 2012, 08:13:59 am

Quote from: ParkerR on June 04, 2012, 07:36:32 am
I can't get v15 or v17 to load my image. I put in this for the command line "/1=boot1.img /F=flash.img" and when I click "Ok" it starts to load then crashes. Windows 7 64bit if that makes a difference. TI-Nspire OS 3.1 CX Loads fine in nspire_emu with the same parameters.
I don't think that 64bit would be the problem.
Which nspire_emu version do you use (when you say your image loads fine)?
SpiroH is based on nspire_emu 0.60.

I'm using 0.60

ParkerR · « **Reply #72 on:** June 04, 2012, 08:23:48 am »

Ok very weird. Crashes when I put in those arguments through the GUI but if I launch it from the command line with SpiroH_v17.exe /1=boot1.img /F=flash.img it works.

ParkerR · « **Reply #73 on:** June 04, 2012, 08:38:41 am »

Quote from: fhub on June 04, 2012, 08:29:13 am

Quote from: ParkerR on June 04, 2012, 08:23:48 am
Ok very weird. Crashes when I put in those arguments through the GUI but if I launch it from the command line with SpiroH_v17.exe /1=boot1.img /F=flash.img it works.
Well, if you enter the arguments in the GUI boot-options dialog, then they are used only at the next start.

But if these arguments are already correctly stored in the registry (as it should be after you've started it with commandline parameters), then the next start of SpiroH should work fine (also without having to enter any parameters again).

PS: And BTW, you shouldn't use SpiroH v15 - that's just an intermediate version where not all keys work.
Better use v17_2 (or v14 which has a different touchpad handling).

Yeah I just was trying the different versions to see if one would not crash. And now that I did it on the command line it seems to have stuck. I can just launch it now. Great work SpiroH

ParkerR · « **Reply #74 on:** June 04, 2012, 08:46:39 am »

A feature I would like to see is instead of having to use the arrow keys to move the mouse, maybe have it to where you can move the mouse over the screen and be able to interact with it 1:1.