Google Summer of Code 06 - A Simplified Onscreen Keyboard

[Chris Jones]

It should be quite easy  to make a wrapper around the GOK core using
something like SWIG.  SWIG is a tool for wrapping up C/C++ classes so
that a scripting language like python can use the code.

There's a few niggles with GOK and I thought starting from a fresh
codebase would mean we could avoid them.  Firstly its dependency on
Sticky Keys, this is irritating if use use a keyboard with GOK as it
pops up an annoying dialog box.  You might do this on a convertable
tablet, or perhaps a teacher helping a student with a headmouse.  SOK
should be designed so it can function both when sticky keys are on and
off.

GOK needs to disconnect the device that is controlling it from the
system pointer.  It does this I assume, since it allows you to move
the mouse using buttons from within GOK.  I don't think this is
necessary for SOK use case though, since its not a feature we should
implement if we want to keep SOK simple.

GOK, for me at least is very sluggish.  Hopefully thats in the
interface code which we would replace.


If we were to use the GOK code base we would have to make quite a few
changes to it, in my opinion.




On 10/05/06, Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Jack Lauritsen wrote:
> > I posted a small response to the milestones laid out in Henriks email.
> > I wont trouble the whole list with this, but anyone who is interested
> > can read it at - http://refeed.blogspot.com/. Comments are welcome.
> Thank you Jack, that was an interesting run-through.
>
> I'm interested in brainstorming a bit more about the C/C++ core with a
> python wrapper approach. If this is indeed workable (my knowledge of
> python is limited, so I don't know how C extensions are handled), it
> might also save some work because the AT-SPI code could then be fished
> out from GOK.
>
> AFAICT, the parts of GOK that talk to AT-SPI work just fine, and the
> problems are in the user interface, which we would in any case replace.
>
> I also like the idea of not locking ourselves to the GOK keyboard file
> format, but do a one-time conversion. That would also give us a chance
> to automatically remove data we don't need, like the numeric keypad and
> function keys. The reason we need to do this at all is that GOK has
> literally hundreds of existing layouts.
>
> - Henrik
>
>
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