Comment 1 Andre Klapper 2009-12-06 16:04:24 UTC

(In reply to comment #0)
> ACTUAL OUTCOME:
> No key responds as Up or Down, so the game cannot be played.

So, what works on the finish keyboard layout currently?
Does using left/right arrow keys in combination with the function work, or
does using those keys that would have the up/down arrows in the english
keyboard layout work, which means The ".," key and the "ÄÆ?" key?

(In reply to comment #1)

> So, what works on the finish keyboard layout currently?

Left and right arrow keys work as Left and Right in the game. Pressing the
function key once, twice, or keeping it pressed has no effect. The ".," and
"ÄÆ?" keys do nothing.

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

Same applies to german keyboard layout.

Thanks for reporting this. As i mentioned on the talk thread, i would never
have expected an N900 without full arrow keys. So:

1- IMO this is a bug with the localized N900 versions missing up and down arrow
keys. I recommend submitting a bug/brainstorm entry on the comedy of making
arrow keys become localized letters and requesting as standard arrow keys on
all Nxxxx devices, with a few extra keys to use as necessary for localized
special characters. Not really sure what's wrong with an accent-shift key for
everyone (i use diacrits and whatnot now and then myself)... but i digress.

2- Also as i mentioned in the talk thread, AFAIK SDL doesn't do a good job of
handling unicode characters as keypress input events. This is going to be a
problem with any SDL app using the same event mode. I'm not sure there's any
easy solution within the code that doesn't involve rewriting the input
routines.

3- It is therefore necessary to either change your key mapping to output normal
ascii-type codes (see
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=414048&postcount=151) while you use UQM,
or to make that change the first time and then edit the key mappings for "up"
and "down" using the control configuration in the menu.

4- The next version of uqm that will be promoted to -testing will have support
for tilt control. I believe this will work in menus, so it will be an inherent
solution. There's work to be done yet before that will be ready for -testing,
so please use the workaround in 3 in the meantime.

Thanks again for reporting, and for playing uqm.

Comment 6 Andre Klapper 2009-12-08 13:21:01 UTC

(In reply to comment #5)
> 1- IMO this is a bug with the localized N900 versions missing up and down arrow
> keys. I recommend submitting a bug/brainstorm entry on the comedy of making
> arrow keys become localized letters and requesting as standard arrow keys on
> all Nxxxx devices, with a few extra keys to use as necessary for localized
> special characters.

Sigh. Please find out what "bug" means. Sounds like people scream "bug" in
Bugzilla a bit too often when it comes to design decisions only.
Also, count the number of letters on the keyboard and the number of "localized
letters" each language has. You will spend some time to find solutions, I
guess.

In my opinion the bug is that with keyboard missing it's own up key, fn+left
doesn't seem to give the same keycode than standard up key does. The same goes
for fn+right = down. Nothing happens, although it is supposed to be the same
key. If I am correct this will most likely cause problems in other applications
as well.

Sigh indeed.

I'm not going to argue the general definition of "bug", but i use it
interchangeably with "defect". The point is that we are discussing a "defect"
someone reported in this app and my response (appropriately IMO) is that the
defect does not exist within the app, but with the device design. I brought up
this issue on uqm IRC and the response there was the same as mine: "...why the
kumquat would anything lack up and down arrows?"

I can appreciate the challenge of fitting lots of language-specific characters
on a keyboard, but that doesn't mean the keyboard design isn't defective if up
and down arrow keys don't appear in some localizations: clearly the keyboard
should have 4 rows if there are not enough keys for such an obvious
standardization. Nokia dropped the ball on this one, and there's no good
universal software fix for this "bug" as a result.

The best i can do for a universal fix is what i'm already working on: make tilt
control one of the defaults so that all users will have *some* way to input
"up" and "down". FYI the lack of inclusion of the joydev kernal module in
vanilla fremantle is the current obstacle. THAT particular feature "defect"
(which is understandable in a device without USB host but has existed since the
beginning of maemo, apparently) will be resolved soon with the help of Attila.

Would it make sense to use the touch screen to navigate to the settings where
the user can then change the key mappings to his or her likings? Is it
technically feasible? That's the first thing I tried to do when I noticed the
up/down doesn't work.

(In reply to comment #9)
> Would it make sense to use the touch screen to navigate to the settings where
> the user can then change the key mappings to his or her likings? Is it
> technically feasible? That's the first thing I tried to do when I noticed the
> up/down doesn't work.

Refer to my latest post in the talk thread[1].

As i have mentioned before, the general solution is the joystick input via
accelerometer driver. I don't want to put in the kind of time necessary to tie
in a completely new (mouse) input method just for the sake of broken keyboards
when mouse input isn't (and indeed couldn't be) used in most of the game. 

I will, however, add specific cases to the menu control maps as the right key
codes are made known to me, but there is no guarantee this will work as
vcontrol doesn't support all keys. One way to do this is for one user of each
localized keyboard type to temporarily assign keys for up and down in the
override.cfg file[1] and then go into the control configuration menu and
attempt to map the "up" and "down" equivalent keys. The string description of
that key is what i need.

[1] http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=422798&postcount=166

If you want to know all the localized key mappings, maybe it helps to have a
look in 

/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51

I also instinctively tried to click on the screen, as I could not navigate the
menu with my Finnish keyboard. In some touchscreen devices, when you click on
the top portion of the screen, that is an Up, bottom is a Down, and so on.

Couldn't we live with a simple keyboard layout applet?

I have started a thread here -> http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38752

This just keeps on coming up again and again. A centrally-provided, core
workaround is needed to avoid many, many reinventions of the wheel and all
kinds of frustrated devs and users.

I'm forwarding this to the bug reported against the maemo platform. Please
continue discussion there.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 7695 ***

FYI there is a workaround in the version now in Extras. It changes the user's
keyboard layout to "us" while the game window has focus.

Known issue: it doesn't properly restore custom maps set with setxkbmap.