Question about keyboard for cnc build

trying to find (and understand) the on-screen keyboard as I would have thought that they use keypress / keyup/ keydown combination with mouse down and up....

robertspark wrote: thanks Andy, I can create the pins (all 112) no problem and change their status from true to false.

It probably makes sense to read a config file, which is a list of rows and columns, and create HAL pins or keystrokes accordingly.
Something like: Which would create HAL pins called "coolant" and "run" and send a 44 key event (KEY_Z) for the third. And do nothing for the blanks.

I am looking for is simple means to input keypresses into the MDI.

I think that python-evdev looks like the best way:
python-evdev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
This seems a close match to the way that my sendkeys component does it in C.
The keycodes are here: wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Scancodes

thanks very much, off to study

andypugh wrote:

robertspark wrote: thanks Andy, I can create the pins (all 112) no problem and change their status from true to false.

It probably makes sense to read a config file, which is a list of rows and columns, and create HAL pins or keystrokes accordingly.
Something like:

Code:

r1c1 pin coolant r1c2 pin run r1c3 key 44 r1c4 r1c5 ...

Which would create HAL pins called "coolant" and "run" and send a 44 key event (KEY_Z) for the third. And do nothing for the blanks or for rows/columns omitted.
Parsing in Python can be done with regexes, to parse the above format:

Code:

import re ... [row, column, type, val] = re.split("r(\d*)c(\d*) (.*?) (.*)", "r1c2 pin hello")[1:5]

I find this web site invaluable for experimenting with regexes: regexr.com

I am looking for is simple means to input keypresses into the MDI.

I think that python-evdev looks like the best way:
python-evdev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
This seems a close match to the way that my sendkeys component does it in C.
The keycodes are here: wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Scancodes

Also look at PanelUI. That can also respond to key codes, and does a lot more too.

linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/gui/panelui.html

thanks andy, penny has (finally) dropped..... sendkeys it is!

I see an easy way forward using pins in sendkeys

thank you very much