on screen keyboard

[jonathandrott@gmail.com]

Hi, i'm kinda new to vb.net and i'm trying to make an on screen
keyboard to use with a touch screen. how do i get it to print a
letter on the screen when the button is pressed in the textbox that is
selected? do i do it as a ascii character?

i'm trying to get data from a user. there are a couple of different
field the user will have to type information into. (i.e. first name,
last name, .etc)

[rowe_newsgroups]

Re: on screen keyboard

On Mar 29, 11:41 am, jonathandr...@g mail.com wrote:

Hi, i'm kinda new to vb.net and i'm trying to make an on screen
keyboard to use with a touch screen. how do i get it to print a
letter on the screen when the button is pressed in the textbox that is
selected? do i do it as a ascii character?
>
i'm trying to get data from a user. there are a couple of different
field the user will have to type information into. (i.e. first name,
last name, .etc)

Are you trying to write a global on screen keyboard or just one to use
in your application only?

Thanks,

Seth Rowe

[Martin H.]

Re: on screen keyboard

Hello Jonathan,

the easiest thing would be to raise an event which contains a variable
with the keycode or the string. However, when developing such a keyboard
(I once wrote one as an OCX, which can be downloaded from
www.henke-hk.com), please keep in mind that there are different layouts
(e.g. on German keyboards you have to press AltGr (Ctrl+Alt)+Q to get
the "@" sign). Considering that .NET supports Unicode, you might need to
consider Chinese/Japanese keyboards and their input methods as well.

Best regards,

Martin

jonathandrott@g mail.com wrote:

Hi, i'm kinda new to vb.net and i'm trying to make an on screen
keyboard to use with a touch screen. how do i get it to print a
letter on the screen when the button is pressed in the textbox that is
selected? do i do it as a ascii character?
>
i'm trying to get data from a user. there are a couple of different
field the user will have to type information into. (i.e. first name,
last name, .etc)
>

[jonathandrott@gmail.com]

Re: on screen keyboard

On Mar 29, 12:03 pm, "rowe_newsgroup s" <rowe_em...@yah oo.comwrote:

On Mar 29, 11:41 am, jonathandr...@g mail.com wrote:
>

Hi, i'm kinda new to vb.net and i'm trying to make an on screen
keyboard to use with a touch screen. how do i get it to print a
letter on the screen when the button is pressed in the textbox that is
selected? do i do it as a ascii character?

>

i'm trying to get data from a user. there are a couple of different
field the user will have to type information into. (i.e. first name,
last name, .etc)

>
Are you trying to write a global on screen keyboard or just one to use
in your application only?
>
Thanks,
>
Seth Rowe

it's with my application

[rowe_newsgroups]

Re: on screen keyboard

On Mar 30, 7:24 pm, jonathandr...@g mail.com wrote:

On Mar 29, 12:03 pm, "rowe_newsgroup s" <rowe_em...@yah oo.comwrote:
>
>
>

On Mar 29, 11:41 am, jonathandr...@g mail.com wrote:

>

Hi, i'm kinda new to vb.net and i'm trying to make an on screen
keyboard to use with a touch screen. how do i get it to print a
letter on the screen when the button is pressed in the textbox that is
selected? do i do it as a ascii character?

>

i'm trying to get data from a user. there are a couple of different
field the user will have to type information into. (i.e. first name,
last name, .etc)

>

Are you trying to write a global on screen keyboard or just one to use
in your application only?

>

Thanks,

>

Seth Rowe

>
it's with my application

Then the absolute easiest way would be to create a usercontrol that
will act as the keyboard. Then you just have worry about passing the
pressed key back to the "target" control.

Here's a quick sample I just wrote:

First comes the user control. For it you need to add some labels, one
for each key of the keyboard. I set the label's Textalign to
MiddleCenter and the BorderStyle to single to give it more of a key-
like look, though if this was a profession app, I would do some GDI+
work to make the label look more like a button. The reason you need to
use a label and not a button is that labels don't receive focus when
clicked.

Next, add the following code the user control. Note I changed the
inherits to Panel to prevent the usercontrol from getting focus, so
you'll have to change the inherits in the usercontrol.Des igner.vb file
too.

Public Class Keyboard
Inherits Panel

' Wire up all the Label's click events to this event handler
Private Sub Label_Click(ByV al sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArg s)
OnKeyPressed(Ne w KeyPressedEvent Args(DirectCast (sender,
Label).Text))
End Sub

Public Event KeyPressed As KeyPressedEvent Handler

Protected Overridable Sub OnKeyPressed(By Val e As
KeyPressedEvent Args)
RaiseEvent KeyPressed(Me, e)
End Sub

End Class

Public Delegate Sub KeyPressedEvent Handler(ByVal sender As Object,
ByVal e As KeyPressedEvent Args)

Public Class KeyPressedEvent Args
Inherits EventArgs

Public Sub New(ByVal keyPressed As String)
Me.KeyPressed = keyPressed
End Sub

Private _KeyPressed As String
Public Property KeyPressed() As String
Get
Return _KeyPressed
End Get
Private Set(ByVal value As String)
_KeyPressed = value
End Set
End Property

End Class

That should be it for the usercontrol, now we just have to worry about
the "host" form. All you have to do is add the new keyboard
usercontrol to a form and then handle the usercontrol's new KeyPressed
event. Use something like the following:

Private Sub Keyboard1_KeyPr essed(ByVal sender As System.Object,
ByVal e As KeyPressedEvent Args)
' You'll have to change this cast if you want to send text
' to a control type other than a TextBox
Dim tb As TextBox = TryCast(Me.Acti veControl, TextBox)
If Not tb Is Nothing Then
tb.Text &= e.KeyPressed
tb.SelectionSta rt = tb.Text.Length
End If
End Sub

Since neither the usercontrol or it's labels can get the focus, the
event handler will try to cast the active control (the control that
had focus before the user clicked the keyboard usercontrol) into a
textbox and then append the text from the KeyPressed event.

I'm guessing there is a more elegant solution to this, but at this
late at night I can't think of one :-) Anyways, I hope it helps you
out!

Thanks,

Seth Rowe