Building a controller with all touch screen monitor & other useful controls

Hi guys,

I wanna build a controller for my syil x7 mill, something similar with how MachMate looks like.
I bought a 11.6 inch touch screen display, it should arrive soon.
The controller will also include the minipc that is already working fine with Mesa7i76e.
So from my controller to the mill, I will have an ethernet cable to connect the ethernet port with the Mesa 7i76e.
I also want some encoders for feed override, rapids override and spindle override + buttons for cycle start, feed hold, estop and power on. In order to do the wiring from these to the mesa board thats inside the mill cabinet, I will use a DB25 paralel port cable, it has enough wires for all the inputs.
Now I have a few questions:
1. on what pins do I have to wire cycle start and feed hold buttons? I know feed hold has motion.feed-hold (if I remember correctly)
2. the encoders for override knobs, will be some 20 pules encoders. How many encoders can I read on the Mesa, right now I am using the spindle encoder for rigid tapping. Can I wire the rest on some inputs?
3. I am using probe screen, but when I click the text inputs where I have to change the values, the on screen keyboard does not pops up. Any idea what to do on that?

These are the questions I have now, I will have many more.
Cheers!