Gentlemen,

Since Dr. Madmab is working on new builds of Xport emulators I had
the idea of suggesting a new "virtual keyboard" layout for the upcoming versions.

Here are the proposals:

1 - Black with full white characters




2 - Black with white characters and colored ENTER/BACKSPACE




3 - Beige Simple




4 - Beige Bold as Love




5 - Beige Satin Dress




6 - Gray Cold as a Stone




7 - The original bundled keyboard (actually in use on all emus)



My vote goes to #1.
Dark as black magic.


Cospefogo.

Even though I voted for option 1. I also kinda like Gray Cold as a Stone.

One note. It is my experience that when displayed on the xbox the keyboard does not look quite the same as on a computer. I guess I'll have to save those pickies and display 'em on the xbox with XBMC.

Nice work.

I voted for 1 as well.

Thanks guys for the feedback.
Madmab, please make use of them on your tests.
Be my guest.

Regards,
Cospefogo.

Something I just thought of was that with the black the transparency might not work out so well. I don't know how much that matters to you guys. Something to think about.....

Why not make the virtual keyboard the same colour as the original keyboard on the system being emulated? That would be cool.

Though generally speaking I like 1 the best.

Hey +T+...
Nice to hear from you!
Your suggestion is okay for me.

I just need some help to figure out what are the different colors for the different systems
and then I can try to reproduce the feeling. I can try also to include some special chars
reflecting the respective special chars that some of the older systems could have.
C64 has Commodore key, isn't it? Where is it placed?

Let me browse Google for some refreshing information.
Regards,
Cospefogo.

Well there were not many options. I think beige was pretty popular back then.

If your willing to custom label the keys for each system. I'm all for that! Although I'm not sure how much help I would be in identifying those keys except for maybe the C64 and the Amiga.

This a pretty good pic of the C64 keyboard:



The keys were a dark brown colour.

The RESTORE button is actually the same as the DELETE button, right?

Madmab, a question:

On the actual Keyboard PNG --- May I add some extra "area" outside the keyboard keys?
This way I can try to reproduce a nice "real" commodore 64 device, for example.
At least a "shell" outside our current keys. And yes, I will NOT change keys positions
or things like that. Just create some dead borders outside the set...

Cospefogo.

Actually I like them all. I'll use what ever wins the poll.
Is this just a facelift or is it planned to add some special keys, like printscreen, needed for Winuaex to exit whdload games properly?

I think it will be just a facelift.
It's up to Medmab, the brain behind the actual works.

C.

Yes we can add dead space "around" the keyboard. As long as we know where the top left corner of the top left key is the emulator can "adjust" it's highlight square.

Cool stuff Cospefogo,

I'm with madmab, I like (1) but I'm also liken the gray (6)

I agree with seeing which one looks best on the box first also.

EDIT: OK damn... I like them all!

I just realized that the bottom keyboard may be possible to use with my hacked 130xe keyboard code.

ok. Here are some three screenies of the keyboards. 2 of the most popular ones and a transparency test given to me by Frank Morris.

Note: I manually set all keyboards with slight transparency ( so you can see the screen behind them).

1st is the black keyboard with full white text. The one that got the most votes.


2nd is the stone cold keyboard. The one that got the 2nd most votes


Finally Frank Morris' transparency test he sent me. Noticed the holes in the keyboard (just a test) and the keyboard also has a shadow. Ignore the blue keycap positioner, his keyboard is slightly different dimensions than the others.

Cospe has done a great job with the keyboard. My test only just proves, that it support PNG transparency.

So, maybe Cospe will make some shadow effect for it, if there's interest? I think the keyboard may not even need it.. It looks clearer without it.

Test was a success, though.



EDIT: Hard to say about the color too. I like them all. Choose whatever and it's fine for me atleast..

Hey guys,

I am glad you ressurectedX (ha ha) my keyboard proposals.
It will be a pleasure to see one of them working on the new emulators.

If you want a shadow under it, I can do it.
But, I will need to save the file as PNG24Bits, is this not a problem for the emulator?

Will we not have the same problems as we have on the gradient colored skins?
The one I mentioned few time ago, when we get a lot of dithering problems
in images using gradients.

Best,
C.

I voted for option 2 as i liked the coloured keys, makes them stand out therefore easy to navigate to without paying much attention. Kind of sets them as a reference point.

Could you make one with shadow, that madmab can see hows it look?
If we have shadow, it looks the best with "stone cold" right?

About the dithering: I don't see any? but it's hard to say for sure, because madmabs
screenies above are JPG shots. PNG24Bits intrinsically is not a problem.

Should I save the screenshots as a different format? The screenshot utility for the xbox devkit saves to .bmp and I then convert them.

As much as I like the black keyboard it seems like it is a little difficult to see on darker screens..

If the sample Frank sent was PNG24Bits then the format should be no problem. Cause the one he sent me was fine. Although it uses a bit more memory than the default and the stone cold ones.

If possible, save them to png.
If you still have bmp snaps, you can convert them to png. (lossless)


True. This really could be an issue.
Actually i'm slightly sloping to the stone cold side..


Yeap. It was 24Bits. Only problem could be the dithering.

Hey I was wondering, you said that you manually made them light transparency.
(which is good), but how this affect to the sun keys upper right corner? If user
presses the ex. the left button, what happens? Invisible keyboard? Maybe not?

Hehe... that is how I "manually" made them light transparency, with the sun keys, before taking the snapshot.

ok. For now stone cold it is..

1 got my vote as well.

Very nice work Cospf... man i wish your name was easier to remember lol.

Excelent idea

Change the Skin and update Keyboard ... it will be the top for DosBox, UAE and ScummVM if one day an update is coded ...

Yeah number 1 got the most votes but it is a little hard to see on darker game screens.

Hey guys...

Let's go with the GRAY version.
It is the best one.
It will work on BLACK and LIGHT background screens!
Right, MadMad?

Cospefogo.

Weird how the last post date for this topic (cospefogo's last post) is all wacked out.

Yes, currently I'm going with the stone cold one since (as nice as it is) the black one does not show up well on darker screen.