Easy things for Android port

Easy things for Android port

[Po Lu]

The Android port, found in feature/android, is now useful for editing,
given that you have a mouse and keyboard.

If someone wants to do easy things for the Android port, they would be:

  - make dired.c understand the `/assets' special directory.

  - make drawing faster by avoiding the extra canvas save and restore on
    each graphics op, only doing that if clip rectangles really change.

  - add support for touch screen events, like in xterm.c, and the
    on-screen keyboard.

  - add support for the TrueType Container format to sfnt.c and
    sfntfont.c.  This is easy because TTC files are just TrueType files
    with multiple table directories, each representing a single font.

  - add support for window restacking and geometry operations
    (i.e. raise-frame, android_reparent_window, et cetera.)

Re: Easy things for Android port

[T.V Raman]

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Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

This is awesome progress.

One question re on-screen keyboard:

Given Emacs' heavy usage of modifier keys, simply adding on-screen
keyboard support may not deliver something very useful.

perhaps we should step back and ask "How Can Emacs Leverage Touch Input"
in a broader sense, and use that as the motivation to do some real UI
innovation  > The Android port, found in feature/android, is now useful for editing,
> given that you have a mouse and keyboard.
>
> If someone wants to do easy things for the Android port, they would be:
>
>   - make dired.c understand the `/assets' special directory.
>
>   - make drawing faster by avoiding the extra canvas save and restore on
>     each graphics op, only doing that if clip rectangles really change.
>
>   - add support for touch screen events, like in xterm.c, and the
>     on-screen keyboard.
>
>   - add support for the TrueType Container format to sfnt.c and
>     sfntfont.c.  This is easy because TTC files are just TrueType files
>     with multiple table directories, each representing a single font.
>
>   - add support for window restacking and geometry operations
>     (i.e. raise-frame, android_reparent_window, et cetera.)
>
>

-- 

Thanks,

--Raman(I Search, I Find, I Misplace, I Research)
7©4 Id: kg:/m/0285kf1  •0Ü8

Re: Easy things for Android port

[Po Lu]

"T.V Raman" <raman@google.com> writes:

> One question re on-screen keyboard:
>
> Given Emacs' heavy usage of modifier keys, simply adding on-screen
> keyboard support may not deliver something very useful.

There is a free input method for Android which does have modifier keys.
I think it's called ``Any Soft Keyboard'' or some such.

> perhaps we should step back and ask "How Can Emacs Leverage Touch Input"
> in a broader sense, and use that as the motivation to do some real UI
> innovation

We already have touch screen support for the X builds, but the events
are not bound to anything at the moment.

Touchscreen support for Android is being worked on, but I think it will
also require a lot of Lisp for gesture recognition, et cetera.  Does
anyone want to write that?

Thanks.

Re: Easy things for Android port

[Jean Louis]

* Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> [2023-01-12 09:07]:
> "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com> writes:
> 
> > One question re on-screen keyboard:
> >
> > Given Emacs' heavy usage of modifier keys, simply adding on-screen
> > keyboard support may not deliver something very useful.

Please review how Termux does it, install Termux, and you will see
CTRL, ALT, keys and few others displayed above any kind of the
key. That way user can use any type of the key.

> There is a free input method for Android which does have modifier keys.
> I think it's called ``Any Soft Keyboard'' or some such.

Not only that one, there is Hacker's Keyboard and SSH keyboard, and
others.

I assume that Emacs will be offered through free software repository
for Replicant, and Android and other akin systems on
https://f-droid.org/

There are many keyboards:
https://search.f-droid.org/?q=keyboard&lang=en

But main way to have special keys can be implemented in the sense how
Termux does it. Try it out to understand. Then any key can be used
with ALT, CTRL, ESC, arrows, just as Termux displays them as buttons
above any type of keyboard.

I don't even use Hacker's Keyboard:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboard/

because Termus has those special keys, when I use Emacs on Android.

-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

Re: Easy things for Android port

[T.V Raman]

All sounds good; but I'd still like to ask the higher-level -- perhaps
somewhat research-oriented question:

Emacs from 40 years ago created a lot of innovations  that still shine
in today's world. Given that those innovations happened in a world
that distinctly lacked the  hardware ans the associated UI affordances
 that we have today; how might Emacs create the next round of
 innovation that will shine for the next 40 years?

Po Lu writes:
 > "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com> writes:
 > 
 > > One question re on-screen keyboard:
 > >
 > > Given Emacs' heavy usage of modifier keys, simply adding on-screen
 > > keyboard support may not deliver something very useful.
 > 
 > There is a free input method for Android which does have modifier keys.
 > I think it's called ``Any Soft Keyboard'' or some such.
 > 
 > > perhaps we should step back and ask "How Can Emacs Leverage Touch Input"
 > > in a broader sense, and use that as the motivation to do some real UI
 > > innovation
 > 
 > We already have touch screen support for the X builds, but the events
 > are not bound to anything at the moment.
 > 
 > Touchscreen support for Android is being worked on, but I think it will
 > also require a lot of Lisp for gesture recognition, et cetera.  Does
 > anyone want to write that?
 > 
 > Thanks.

-- 

Thanks,

--Raman(I Search, I Find, I Misplace, I Research)
♉ Id: kg:/m/0285kf1  🦮

--

Thanks,

--Raman(I Search, I Find, I Misplace, I Research)
♉ Id: kg:/m/0285kf1  🦮

Re: Easy things for Android port

[Björn Bidar]

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

>> perhaps we should step back and ask "How Can Emacs Leverage Touch Input"
>> in a broader sense, and use that as the motivation to do some real UI
>> innovation
>
> We already have touch screen support for the X builds, but the events
> are not bound to anything at the moment.
>
> Touchscreen support for Android is being worked on, but I think it will
> also require a lot of Lisp for gesture recognition, et cetera.  Does
> anyone want to write that?

I hope I don't write out of line however: In many projects the mobile
support was done platform  specific (e.g. Chrome or Firefox).

Would it be possible to write it so the touch screen support is done
platform independent e.g. through GTK? I don't like GTK but for Qt app I
would leverage Qt to get multi platform.

Re: Easy things for Android port

[Björn Bidar]

Björn Bidar <bjorn.bidar@thaodan.de> writes:

> Would it be possible to write it so the touch screen support is done
> platform independent e.g. through GTK? I don't like GTK but for Qt app I
> would leverage Qt to get multi platform.

Sorry send this email without finished typing. It should be:

 I don't like GTK but for Qt app I would leverage Qt to get multi
 platform support.
 

Emacs is not a research project

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Emacs from 40 years ago created a lot of innovations  that still shine
  > in today's world. Given that those innovations happened in a world
  > that distinctly lacked the  hardware ans the associated UI affordances
  >  that we have today; how might Emacs create the next round of
  >  innovation that will shine for the next 40 years?

Beyond simply being good to use, the overarching goal of the GNU
system, including GNU Emacs, is to give users freedom to control their
own computing.

Compared with freedom, innovation is a side issue.  Our society
generally overemphasizes innovation as a goal, often as a way of
distracting users from questions of their own freedom.

If in working on Emacs you think of a useful new feature and you
implement it in GNU Emacs, we will appreciate that innovation.  But we
won't measure the success of our work by how much the
user-disrespecting nonfree programs of 30 years from now are
influenced by our work.  We aim to replace them with free software,
not to enhance them.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)