XRoar snapshot - testing appreciated!

[sixxie]

I've left a snapshot build in the usual place: https://www.6809.org.uk/tmp/xroar/

I wonder if anyone with a non-UK/non-US keyboard can test it and see if anything is... off? I've been putting together a new keyboard layer that should let you use consistent names for keys across toolkits. It should be able to query symbols on all the main supported platforms, but I can only really test that for Linux.

If you run it from a command line, running with the "-debug-ui 1" option will print keypress information. Remember under Windows to have -C (uppercase 'C' there) as the very first option, or it won't connect to console (Windows has a slightly odd relationship with standard i/o).

[robcfg]

I'll give it a try tomorrow on a Mac with spanish keyboard.

[sixxie]

I'll give it a try tomorrow on a Mac with spanish keyboard.

Cheers!

[robert_o]

I tested the snapshot on Linux Mint (compiled it from source). I don't know what you mean by "something off" but the mapping is not right for a german keyboard.
-robert

[sixxie]

I tested the snapshot on Linux Mint (compiled it from source). I don't know what you mean by "something off" but the mapping is not right for a german keyboard.

So does that mean untranslated keys aren't in the right place (where "right" = where they'd be on Dragon keyboard), or that translation mode isn't mapping to the right thing (e.g. pressing apostrophe with translation turned on isn't being mapped to Shift+7)?

[pser1]

hello Ciaran,
I have downloaded you last snapshot and have used it for a while.
No issues by now. Anyway I have put in the work directory, so I will be using that version from now on.
cheers!
pere

Pd forgot to say I do use the w64 version!

[sixxie]

I have downloaded you last snapshot and have used it for a while.
No issues by now. Anyway I have put in the work directory, so I will be using that version from now on.
cheers!
pere

That's good to hear!

The sort of thing I'm imagining is changed behaviour when the UI has it's own idea of what Control+something should do, etc. (Edit: or indeed wrong keysyms! Though I'm not sure what the issue is there yet)

Just pushed out another snapshot - this one auto-adds any joysticks it finds to the menus, hopefully with sensible names.

[robert_o]

So does that mean untranslated keys aren't in the right place (where "right" = where they'd be on Dragon keyboard), or that translation mode isn't mapping to the right thing (e.g. pressing apostrophe with translation turned on isn't being mapped to Shift+7)?

The Position is correct but i don't understand the Layout question then. For my understanding shouldn't the keys produce the symbol which is printed on them?
The scancode of any keyboard is the same depending on the position, no matter what is printed on the key so it doesn't matter what Language the keyboard is in.
But than again i do not use emulators that much and i don't know the usual way of how things are done. Maybe one can put stickers on the keys and has the same experience as the original?

If i can help any further, let me know.
-robert

[sixxie]

The Position is correct but i don't understand the Layout question then. For my understanding shouldn't the keys produce the symbol which is printed on them?

The scancode of any keyboard is the same depending on the position, no matter what is printed on the key so it doesn't matter what Language the keyboard is in.

But than again i do not use emulators that much and i don't know the usual way of how things are done. Maybe one can put stickers on the keys and has the same experience as the original?

Well, I don't use many other emulators either so I'm not sure what's common.

XRoar starts up without "translation" turned on, meaning it will try and approximate as far as possible the positions of the keys on the emulated system. Yes, using scancodes - as you note, they don't change (plus or minus).

The reason for this being the default is twofold:

First, I don't know about you, but when I'm using a Dragon (emulated or no), my brain switches what it expects the keyboard to be like. The 80s baked in lots of finger training!

Second, a lot of games (which I imagine to be the main use of emulators, let's face it) have keyboard controls that very much depend on their relative position to be usable.

But you can turn on keyboard translation (in the Tool menu, or by pressing Control+Z), and XRoar should instead try and map the actual symbols on your keys (at least what the OS thinks they are) to emulated keystrokes, including pressing or releasing the emulated shift key if appropriate. So in theory you can get the best of both worlds. It all falls apart a bit anyway when you start using OS-9, which has different key chords to produce some of the extended characters, but it's good for BASIC.

Anyway, lots of recent changes were to try and make a lot of that more automatic. If it fails, you should be able to run with command line option "-kbd-lang de" for example to force use of a built-in German keycode to symbol mapping.

At some point "-kbd-layout iso" and "-kbd-layout ansi" (and "jis" and "unix") will do useful things too. e.g. my unix layout keyboard has four more keys to the right of '0' and one of those mapping to Break makes sense - the Escape key on PC keyboards is way over the other side...

Annnnd I appear to have rambled on. Sorry about that.

[robcfg]

I tested on the Mac with spanish keyboard and it works well both in translated and untranslated mode.