BlenderPocket for Devices W/O a Hardware Keyboard

[gilbenl]

Hey all-

I may have just hit on the biggest niche project in history, but here's the story: I have been doing 3D modeling for about six years now, starting in Rhino before moving to Blender. During a late-night, ADD fueled search for random cabs on the internetz, I came across this and my jaw dropped:

http://russose.free.fr/BlenderPocket/

I see a great deal of potential for using this port on the imagio: Big, high resolution screen, great touch response, and a heck of a lot of horsepower. Unfortunately, as anyone with any modeling experience would know, your keyboard and mouse are often your best friends...two things the Imagio does not have. Therefore, as I have wanted to learn how to do some basic developing for windows mobile, I have decided to adopt making this program work well on the Imagio as a pet-project. In order to do this, I have to do the following:

1) Remap the physical buttons I do have to perform the most often needed functions. The program provides a hardware button config file (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1149002/hardware_button.txt) and the website explains it using this diagram (http://russose.free.fr/BlenderPocket...ure_button.jpg). So for starters, I am need to figure out the current mapping/numbering of the hardware buttons on the imagio so that I can reconfigure the hardware_button file properly. If anyone could aid me in deciphering the attached docs, and determining the proper values for the Imagio, it would be greatly appreciated.

1a) If possible, I would like to use the following cab to add more functionality to the volume rocker, providing me an additional 4 buttons. http://beemer.sesma.eu/en/voldpad.htm
My question is if it would be possible to map the "double tap vol up/down" (for example) provided through the aforementioned cab as separate hardware key inputs than simply volume up/down?..if that makes any sense.

2) Custom virtual keyboard. When using blender on the computer, you use the keyboard for about 90% of the time. Unfortunately, due to the frequency of use, and necessity of being able to see the model as you execute the commands through the keyboard, using a large keyboard such as the default or swype (which both take up half the screen) are not viable. Therefore, I would like to create a custom keyboard, which occupies the space equivalent to one letter row on on the full-size keyboard, and contains only 8 or so keys, plus an additional 8 or so when you press shift. Although blender maps functions to specific letters, I would like to replace the letter graphics with custom blender function icons while still mapping them to the proper letter key...again, hope that makes sense. Although I have extensive experience in photoshop (so creating the graphics should be a snap), I am a noob when it comes to creating custom keyboards. So, first, is something like this possible, or are you required to have all letters on the keyboard? If it is indeed possible, could someone point me towards some instructions on how to do this?

3) Blender opens in portrait by default; it needs to be in landscape. Although I have the reg-tweak which rotates all TF3D screens, I cannot rotate blender. Is there a program which will permit landscape vs portrait for specific programs? Can Gyrator or similar pull this off?

4) Once I've learned enough to do the above, my grand goal would be to enable zoom using the slider on the bottom of the screen. What would be even better would be if I could have a hot key (physical or virtual) that held down would allow me to quickly switch the function of the zoom slider from zoom to pan left and right, and when released, switch back. Although this is a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, any ideas are welcome.

In any case, I don't suppose the actual program will attract much interest, but if I can successfully implement the interface modifications, it would have a vast number of applications. For example, the custom virtual keyboard could (and if I'm successful with Blender, will) be readopted to be used in a similar manner in programs like excel, word, etc. This will be my way of repaying those who offer help. In addition, if successful with the zoom bar, it could also be ported to be used with other programs as well.

Ultimately, I see this as a great learning experience, and if successful, a segue into the development of other things which may have a broader appeal. Also, whatever progress is made will be posted in this thread with detailed, step-by-step instructions for setting it up if anyone is interested.

If there is indeed interest in this project, I would love to hear any other ideas you may have to make the interface more usable.

Thanks in advance for the help! I promise it will not go to waste!

-Nick