virtual kbd should provide more options

[GoogleCodeExporter]

HTC Sensation

The Sensation don't have physical keyboard at all. The virtual keyboard of the 
terminal (connect bot) should provide more features. 

After folding virtual kbd in, and pressing bottom of screen, we get a small 
tool bar with 3 icons.

I don't konw what these icons are for, and they don't work for me; but I will 
except they work for people who have a physical kbd in their phone.

A 4th icon should be created and offer a pop-up list offering to send special 
keystrokes, strokes that can't be sent with the normal virtual kbd:
- ^C (break)
- ^D (logoug, end of cession)
- ^Z 
- ^A (used by many apps as special feature key: minicom, screen ... )
- TAB (for obvious reasons)
- HOME (begin of line)
- END (end of lines)

and probably many other ones I may forget (lite meta for emacs users).

All those strokes can not be sent using the legacy virtual keyboard. I am not 
asking you to patch the virtual keyboard (i expect you to use the one provided 
by Android), but add more features in the menu "before" the virt kbd.

If you want a good key list, you can look at what is provided by Putty for 
Symbian. It's very handy and compleet. Or if you ask me, I will start it and 
tell you later on.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by ben...@demaine.info on 12 Aug 2011 at 7:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sorry, it's not a defect, but a feature request. Is it possible to change the 
bug type after cration ?

Original comment by ben...@demaine.info on 12 Aug 2011 at 7:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am reading http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/wiki/UsageWithSoftKeyboard

HTC Sensation does not have any of those keys. Only Home, Menu, Back and Zoom. 
No trackball, no click.

And I forgot something very important: as I don't have trackball, I am missing 
arrow keys !!! can not move cursor right/left on line.

ScriptManager walked around this issue by doing several touch screen combo: 
touching screen right to left at bottom of screen moves the cursor left. If you 
touch screen right to left at center, or top of screen, you get different 
features.

Original comment by ben...@demaine.info on 12 Aug 2011 at 7:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Putty for Symbian (phone with 12 key pad ... ) make it a 2 key combo (one
then the other), so, it's : menu-left, click (first entry of menu is "send
... "(send key stroke), and here are the 12 entries for first menu:
1: line ... => submenu
2: text ... submenu
3: ENTER (you can press the CLICK to perform enter in the main console,
but they added a second ENTER here ... why not).
4: TAB (wee need quiet often, they made it short)
5: special keys ... menu
6: Nothing
7: CONTROL+ ... menu
8: ALT+ ... menu
9: pipe ( | )
*: Esc (12 key pad has start bottom left ... of course)
0: SPACE (why not)
#: backquote (HTC virtual kbd does not provide it anywhere; almost
impossible to write scripts without ` ... very few people know how to use
the newer $() equvalent syntax.

sub menus:

line: pop-up to enter a line. You may ask me why create a new pop-up to
enter text, while you can type things in the main console ? two reasons:
a: this is a system pop-up, it inherits all features of Symbian, including
all kinds of special paste. This would ALSO be usefull on Android (as your
console does not allow me to perform any copy-paste, if you had just this,
i could at least paste)
b: when you manualy enter text, you are slow to type at human speed; when
using this pop-up, the text is sent all in one shot; many applications are
time dependant, and may timeout before you can type, or paste things in
the normal console. This backup-feature may help in various cases.
c: allows to enter clear text passwords when the prompt is trying to hide
things (especially with this 12 k-pad)

text: same with different pop-up shape for larger texts

special keys: 1=HOME, 2=F1-F10 (with 3rd level sub-menu ... i think you
are clever enough to understand without screen-shot :D ), 3=PageUp
(usefull on Android when touch screen is broken), 7=END, 9=PageDown,
0=Insert, #=Delete. The key association could be subject to discussion,
but that is just esthetical detail. It won't work by key association on my
phone, but don't forget that android COULD be installed on phones that
only have 12k-pads and no touch screen; keep in mind that association
features to digits may be usefull (and hopefully, they may have a cursor;
I don't :'( )

Control keys: 1=pop-up (you type the letter you want to send after
control), 2=^D, 3=^J 4=^C 5=^Z #=^A,D (used by 'screen' and other apps).

Alt sub menu is strange to me. It offers Alt+1 Alt+2 ... and is missing
Alt+F1. It also has a pop-up to enter desired single letter.

N95 is really an old phone, but Putty implementation managed to do it
pretty well dispite the very poor keyboard.

Original comment by ben...@demaine.info on 12 Aug 2011 at 9:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There should be own ConnectBot's virtual keyboard or you should provide more 
on-screen keys (like esc/ctrl).
ConnectBot is so useless without pipe key (|)...

Original comment by p.malis...@gmail.com on 19 Sep 2011 at 1:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Not it's own keyboard; a board is hell to maintain; but it should expand the 
special char list.

Hackers keyboard is very good (Gingerbread is way too small). But we can not 
expect all CB users to install 3 keyboards.

Original comment by ben...@demaine.info on 19 Sep 2011 at 9:25