REDLION G3 Popup Keypad

Editing a string with the default keypad and I am not happy with this default keypad.

1. No Backspace or CLEAR Key
2. First time you Open the Keypad to edit the string and use the "Prev" or "Next" arrows it switches to the small numeric keypad and then back to the full keypad. Once you edit a character, the curser keys behave as they should.

I don't think my customer is going to like this keypad. What are my options? Are there other keypads? Is there a template to make my own?

ATU,

Probably not the news you want to hear but I think that you are going to have to create your own keypad if the default one does not work for you. I have attached a simple program that should run in the Emulator mode to show you one method of how this could be done.

Thanks,
Joe_WaZoo

Thanks for the code, I get the idea on how to do it. However, I need one to replace the QWERTY keyboard to edit a text string. I don't suppose there is any way to access the default keyboard to modify it? I guess that it's probably not scripted.

I did find an option to turn off the switching from the QWERTY to the Numeric Keypad with the curser keys, However the keys still don't work until you push one of the character keys.

Are they going to need access to a FULL keypad, or just upper and lower case? This can be done, but may take a lot of code depending on how many strings you need to enter like this.

One way around this, which is as close as we can get without a bunch of code would be the following. First enable One Touch Data Entry, this is accessed by clicking Pages at the top of the Page List in the User Interface section. Then in the On Select field (data entry tab of the primitive) use PostKey(0x0D, 0). The PostKey function acts like you just pressed a specific key, in this case the Enter key, as pressing the enter key the first time will put the cursor in the edit field. You will also want to add: PostKey(0x08, 0),PostKey(0x1B, 0) to the On Entry Complete field, which does a Prev then Exit, so the first data entry field is highlighted again, so it is easy to go back to make another change to this tag again. See below for the reaon why.

The main drawback to this is that you must first have another data entry field higlighted, before selecting this string, otherwise the On Select does not help. One way to get around this is to place a data entry point, it could just be to some dummy internal tag in the upper left with the same foreground and background colors, so it looks invisible to the user.

The above are immediate things that can be done to get around this. I will submit a feature request for this, but I am not sure when it would be imlemented.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

Regards,
Dan

Besides the curser problem, the keypad is almost adequate. It only lacks BackSpace or Delete and Clear All Keys. The only way to correct a mistake is to backup and type over it. Then, what do you do to remove spaces? It is a serious oversight and needs to be corrected.

I tried your little trick and it works the first time, but I can't get it deselect the object when exiting. I put an invisible tag in the upper left and put in the code as you stated. Is there something else I need to do? Can you post an example that works?

Make sure that you enabled data entry on the 'invisible' item.

Attached is what I used for testing. I also added a button to clear out all of the text as well as a button to remove spaces. You could use that same function On Entry Complete to remove any extra spaces.

Regards,
Dan

Dan,

Tried your program and it behaves the same way. If you select the text control, the curser appears. Then exit or enter new data from the keypad and then select it again, I don't get a curser.

I added the Clear button to my app, that was a good idea. However, the remove spaces doesn't work because it removes all the spaces, just not what is on the end. I'll just stick with clear for now, that should be sufficient. However I really think Redlion should add at the very least a backspace or a delete key in both the Qwerty and numeric keypads. This is the first screen that I have worked with that didn't have at least one type of delete key in the default data entry objects. It would also be nice to have a completely scripted keypad so the user could make custom modifications. I could probably make one myself, but like you said it would be quite an undertaking and all I would gain would be one or 2 more keys and maybe something with a little more shine.

I can see that happening on exit, as I did not compensate for that, but after entering a value, the previous item on the screen should have been selected.

I have submitted a feature request for these items.

Regards,
Dan

I think that if you push on the right curser key, the curser should appear on the far left of the window, moving to the right. If you push on the left curser key, the curser should appear at the end of the data on the right and move to the left.

I would also like to see BS or an arrow to the left for backspace, a DEL key and a CLEAR key. If you only had room for 1 key, the BS key would be my first choice.

It would also be nice to have a help button in each primitive box to explain all of the options.

What is the field for "Leading Pixels" in the Text Format box for buttons? I can't find any information on it and I don't see that it does anything, no matter what number I put in there.

Thanks for the help. This is my second project using one of your displays and I am still learning all of the ways to do things.

The leading pixels are for spacing between multiple lines of text. You can use the Pipe (|) to separate between multiple lines on the primtives that support it.

Regards,
Dan