Alternate ways of showing the on-screen keyboard?

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The virtual keyboard currently shows up when pressing the "+/Start" button, 
which could be a little confusing since, in games that use the Wiimote on its 
side, that's usually the button used for the pause/start function.

It would be nice if the "show/hide on-screen keyboard" function could be mapped 
to a button of your choice, just like the keys, and even have the option of 
leaving it unmapped (still being able to access it from the main menu).

That would make it possible to, for example, map "+" to the start and/or pause 
keys, and "-" to the restart/quit keys.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 6 Sep 2012 at 11:45

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I was just trying to enter a single line for making a circle and man, was it 
difficult to type having to go back and forth between the emulation and the 
on-screen keyboard... Here's my full list of suggestions regarding it:

-Allow for any button to be mapped as "Show/Hide keyboard", since not all games 
require one and the "+" button could be useful for something else.
-Keep emulation running in the background while you're typing until you hide 
the keyboard, so you can type full sentences and also see what's going on.
-Please make it possible to choose between different keyboard models. Once you 
get used to the +2 keyboard you never go back to the original 16K/48K one.

Original comment by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 3 Jan 2013 at 4:02

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just two more suggestions:

-Holding B while pressing keys on the virtual keyboard could act as if the keys 
you're entering were being pressed together, until B is released. This would be 
specially useful for cheat codes where you have to hold many keys at a time 
(something that's just impossible to do now).
-Since you need to point at the screen for entering keys, perhaps the keyboard 
could just automatically show up when you're pointing at it? That would remove 
the necessity of mapping a button to show/hide it.

Original comment by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 8:08

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Can you make some examples of the case 1 ?

For the suggestion 2, I received it also from other people, but it can not be 
accepted since if you use the wiimote with the nunchuck you could inadvertly 
active the virtual keyboard when you do not want to.

Original comment by olimpier...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 8:50

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Right off the bat, I can think of the invincibility code in Sol Negro 
("1"+"2"+"J"), or a certain screen warp feature in Garfield Big Fat Hairy Deal 
(I remember finding it while pressing lots of random keys at once, back in the 
day).

But this could also be useful for something more important. Right now, some 
special keys can't be treated as actual keys (Caps Shift, Symbol Shift), 
because they prompt for a "normal" key to be pressed afterwards.

Using B to hold keys would also allow for these to be entered as normal keys. 
Just a message would be required on screen, so the user knows what to do.

After giving it some thought, I think this would be the most functional way of 
implementing an on-screen keyboard of this kind:

Here's an example on how somebody would type a text in caps using B.

-Show virtual keyboard -> Message says: "B = HOLD/RELEASE KEY"
-Hold B -> Message says: "PRESS KEY TO HOLD/RELEASE"
-Click on "Caps Shift" -> Caps Shift gets selected
-Release B -> Message goes back to: "B = HOLD/RELEASE KEY"
-Click on any keys and the text will come up in caps
-Then, when you don't wan't any more caps, hold B and press "Caps Shift" again 
(or just hide and show the keyboard to reset the held keys).

Here's how you'd input a cheat code that required you to hold "1", "2" and "J":

-Show virtual keyboard -> Message says: "B = HOLD/RELEASE KEY"
-Hold B -> Message says: "PRESS KEY TO HOLD/RELEASE"
-Click on "1" -> "1" gets selected
-Click on "2" -> "2" gets selected
-Click on "J" -> "J" gets selected -> In the background, the cheat code just 
got activated
-Hide virtual keyboard and no more keys will be held anymore

Original comment by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 10:00

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[deleted comment]

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Regarding the way of showing the keyboard, there could just be an option like:

-Show/hide keyboard:
--Pointer
--Button -> Press button for showing/hiding keyboard

Original comment by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 10:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Regarding, "But this could also be useful for something more important. Right 
now, some special keys can't be treated as actual keys (Caps Shift, Symbol 
Shift), because they prompt for a "normal" key to be pressed afterwards.", it 
is already posible to send Caps Shift and Symbol Shift to the emulator: after 
selecting one of them you have to select "done".

I inserted this feature to allow their keybindings to wiimote. 

Original comment by olimpier...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 11:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, I see. Still, this would be useful for either holding multiple keys at once 
or keeping a key held while pressing others.

Original comment by iceknigh...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2013 at 11:13