Bring up SIP (Software Input Panel) keyboard on WinCE

Support for PocketPC and WinCE version

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robertut
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Bring up SIP (Software Input Panel) keyboard on WinCE

Post by *robertut »

Dear Christian, and developers!

I have a suggestion for Total Commander CE. Let me describe the situation first, and then the suggestion. I may get longer, please excuse the long post.

A lot of PNA/PND navigation devices are present on market these days, which actually contain OEM versions of WinCE. These versions do not have a Start menu, they don't have a taskbar or tray. Usually they have a custom shell made by the brand manufacturer, with 4-8 menu buttons, to start the basic programs they ship on the SD Card, or the internal memory of the device: GPS navigation, video players, picture viewers, text reader.

These apps can be easily changed just by replacing the exe on the SD or the memory with something else; many users prefer to install Total Commander CE that way instead of a text viewer for example, to get a real good file manager on it.

However, since these devices lack a hardware keyboard (they have only a couple hardware buttons, but mine only has one, beside the touch screen: the power button LOL), and the custom shells never have a software keyboard either, it's very difficult to input text when renaming files, for example.

Most of these PNAs, since they are stripped versions of WinCE, don't have all the libraries to run third-party apps like software keyboards (aygshell.dll is one example). In addition, there is always the problem - soft-resetting looses all the settings and installed programs - these are not PDA-s, so it's very hard to work this way.

However, the standard SIP module (Software Input Panel) is there and present in all WinCE editions, we only need to load it to show it, and unload it do close it. There is a small app called MioTool (developed by a young enthusiast programmer for Mio PNA devices, but works on all others too) (see gpslab.pl/file_detale_4338_MioTool+Keyboard.html)which puts a small icon in the top left corner of the screen. Tapping the icon toggles the SIP! Great solution. One problem though. You need to load MioTool exe first, then tap and hold to quit it.

And here goes the suggestion: could you add a small keyboard icon to the toolbar, to toggle the WinCE-built-in SIP keyboard in Total Commander CE? That would help us users a lot, and save us to need to launch and quit MioTool!
Also another extra: you could add an option in Settings: Auto-Show keyboard. When enabled, if a Total Commander window comes up, with a textbox on it, it could show up the SIP panel too, and when closing the window, it could close it. (Just like WM versions, but this is handled by the WM there, you could handle this internally in Total Commander too)

Many people re-make on their own the interfaces of this custom shell on their WinCE PNAs, to make the usage more confortable and user friendly, one of the applications most preferred is Total Commander CE. A very nice freeware to do this is System Information (see ultimatelaunch.de) from ultimatelaunch.de. No taskbar, systray, start menu - thus no keyboard - which is still a need in Total Commander.

Any chance to have this feature implemented in the CE version of Total Commander?

Thank you for the response.
robertut
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Post by *robertut »

I'd post some links and pictures but the forum keeps rejecting my posts.
robertut
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Post by *robertut »

Download MioTool; System Information.

Here some pictures of existing MioTool running (look in top left corner):
Image: http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/reviews/iPAQ310/miotool.jpg
Image: http://www.postimage.org/aV27QVDA.jpg
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ghisler(Author)
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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

Unfortunately I cannot find any source code on the linked pages how to show the input panel on these devices. If you know how to do it, then please let me know!

Total Commander Pocket currently tries to load aygshell.dll and then calls SHSipInfo to show/hide the input panel. Unfortunately aygshell.dll is missing on most Windows CE devices.
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robertut
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Post by *robertut »

ghisler(Author) wrote:Unfortunately I cannot find any source code on the linked pages how to show the input panel on these devices. If you know how to do it, then please let me know!
I'll see what I can do.
ghisler(Author) wrote:Total Commander Pocket currently tries to load aygshell.dll and then calls SHSipInfo to show/hide the input panel. Unfortunately aygshell.dll is missing on most Windows CE devices.
Really? MioTool doesn't need aygshell.dll. I guess it accesses it differently...

Btw, which version of aygshell.dll do you recommend? There are several versions here: http://hpcmonex.net/izemize/aygshells.zip
Last edited by robertut on 2009-03-27, 09:54 UTC, edited 2 times in total.
robertut
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Post by *robertut »

Sources for aygshell.dll:
http://hpcmonex.net/izemize/aygshellSOURCE.zip

Maybe you can have a look how aygshell calls the SIP keyboard, and implement it in TCP directly.
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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

Hmm, the MSDN link above writes this about softkb.dll:
> Exposes no public functions. This module is included in the
> full-version OS.

The SipShowIM function from the linked codeproject article may be able to do the trick, though. I will try that.
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robertut
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Post by *robertut »

ghisler(Author) wrote:The SipShowIM function from the linked codeproject article may be able to do the trick, though. I will try that.
Good, thanks! Can't wait for the news.
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