[Pro1, Ghost touches and other digitizer and display issues]

Since I bought my phone I've had to replace my screen before already, but since a few months the replacement has been slowly breaking in the very same way. I've contacted support, and after a long wait and a reminder they got back to me.  They asked me to confirm my shipping details and once I've done so, they sent me a replacement module along with a complementary battery and sheet of screw cover stickers right away. (Just like for Milly it seems). This arrived merely 2 days later and I've swapped my screen module over the last weekend, having everything working as it should again. I'm happy that despite support being overwhelmed, they are taking responsibility for the issue and providing me with a means to keep using my otherwise great phone. Just reporting this to make others aware of how the requests are being handled and to give credit where it is due.

Edit:
Sidenote: the new screen I received registers touches all over the screen, including the bent sides. This despite me running LineageOS rather than the stock rom, and I've not reflashed it either. So it seems that the screen module was shipped with the margins reset. Great!

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

On 6/5/2020 at 7:12 PM, tdm said:

 

Yes, with the qwertz test2 boot image you may specify AltGr as a modifier.  It seems this is very close to the final desired mappings, so I will incorporate it into test13.

 

 

Because the '?' symbol is generated with shift, you would probably need to choose another key to map for use with the yellow-arrow.  Perhaps the "O" key, for example:

44:0018:8035

 

And, now that you mention it, the SYM key does also generate KEY_RIGHTALT, aka. AltGr.  So I am wondering if that is still desirable...?

 

 

Thanks for the report.  Please file an issue on github.  I should be able to fix it.

 

 

Thank you.  🙂  I'm not sure how you can help... that depends on your experience.  If you have never built Android, that would be a good start... build your own ROM.

 

The boot image would be the recovery one, yes? I didn't think the keyboard driver could would be in there, I'm actually still running the recovery image from build 2 I think yet I do have the updated keyboard behaviour. Maybe I upgraded and forgot?

Hm I guess I could put the question mark on O indeed, then I could have L behave consistently as the other keys would, with using slanted arrows for the AltGr key combinations. Thanks.

Well, ideally the Sym key would be configurable too. Personally, what'd fix things for me the best, is simply swapping current behaviour of the slanted arrows and sym key. Then I'd use Sym for all the yellow characters, and the slanted arrows for AltGr with stock keyboard files and no custom remapping. But I had the impression that the slanted arrows and sym keys operated differently in the driver, one being on a keyboard matrix and one being on some GPIO lines, so I'm not sure how trivial it is to have it all this configurable.

Issue created (#57).

I have built Android before, LineageOS specifically even, but this was way back on the Photon Q. My Android and Java (and build tools) experience is very minimal, but I am quite familiar with other embedded sytems. 

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

19 hours ago, tdm said:

Alright qwertz folks, here's another test boot image.  Please try and let me know how the keyboard works.  Most keys should be correct, but I may have made a mistake or two...

 

http://files.nwwn.com/android/pro1/boot-qwertz-test2.img

 

Note that I have added a flag for AltGr = 0x1000.  So we have:

0x8000 = shift (left shift)

0x4000 = ctrl (left ctrl)

0x2000 = alt (left alt)

0x1000 = altgr (right alt)

 

Note there is only space for one more flag.  If more flags are needed, I will probably expand the codes from 16 bits to 32 bits.

 

Ooh, am I reading this correctly? Is it now possible to make custom keymappings using the slanted arrow key to get special characters that require AltGr and thus far needed the Sym key to be pressed? This would be a lifechanger for me! As I described in a post a month back, on test build 2 I'd use the slanted arrow keys for all the special Polish characters I need, but updating to build 11 (iirc) meant I was stuck to using Sym for those keys and it was impossible to remap them manually in the way I wanted. So if this is now possible thanks to this additional modifier, that's great! It really was the biggest drawback with the newer builds for me, enough of a bother to actually consider running the outdated build 2 or going stock again. Over the past month or more I've worked from home due to the pandemic thing anyway, so I've been mostly avoiding typing on the phone altogether, but in the few situations I had to it was very frustrating as Sym is not a convenient key to use in combination with many of the other keys on the keyboard. As the slanted arrows are represented on both the left and the right side, they're much more suitable for this.

I do wonder about one combination though, the L key for example; This has a question mark printed on it and currently the slanted arrow is used to type it. I'd remap the slanted arrow to produce altgr with L in order to get Ł. How would I go about typing a question mark? Ideally I'd do this by pressing Sym+L, but as I understand that still sends a AltGr+L code so that would also result in Ł instead of a question mark. I guess for now I could have L be the one exception, fortunately it is on the right side of the keyboard so using it with Sym is doable. It'd be nice to make it consistent with the rest of the keys though, in that I'd be using the slanted arrow keys for it. If there's something I can do to help out on this matter please let me know.

And one other issue/bug with the build 11 that is quite noticable is the headphone volume. At first I thought the slider for in-call volume didn't work at all, but after more testing I found out that it does. It's just that the minimum possible volume, is already too loud for most of my earphones. I'm now limited to using one specific set of earphones and try and position them as far out of my ear as possible, along with having the volume for in-call set to the lowest position. I've done some researching online and I've come to understand that it'd be possible to change the starting volume for these things in a file called mixer_paths.xml , but I'm not sure which of those values need changing and to what level. I believe this is also an issue on stock, it's been mentioned on the forum by several people already with no seeming fix. Is this something that we could see fixed in LOS?

My apologies for welcoming you back by burying you with more requests/issues, I do really appreciate all the work you've done for us into making LOS a thing for this phone and it's amazing how it's generally better than the stock rom. If I can help out someway into polishing the LOS rom into something perfect, do tell and I'll give it a try.

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

1 hour ago, Craig said:

tdm has said he plans to make the gpio keys configurable.    When that happens, you could make the right slantarrow into another right-alt, which will help with non-english layouts.

https://github.com/tdm/android_device_fxtec_pro1/issues/36

 

I see. That sounds like an improvement that'd occur in the further future though. When it does happen though, I'd probably set both slanted arrow keys to AltGr and set Sym to Fn, rather than just modify the right slanted arrow, for sake of consistency.

For now I've been looking at what I can do to make things work better in the short-term, as this is my only phone actually. It appears a quick swap of DEFINEs in the driver and a custom recompilation won't be possible, as while I have found the DEFINE for the slanted arrow keys (one define though, so my first impression is that they're physically on the same GPIO line) I haven't found such a DEFINE for the Sym key, leading me to suspect that the Sym key is handled by the key controller. So that doesn't appear to be an achievable goal and the only proper way to swap the key's effects would be to implement the improvement as described by the ticket. Another option I'm considering for now, is to make Sym sticky. That might be doable with considerably less effort and thus would be available on a shorter term. Not as convenient as using the slanted arrow keys, but it beats holding the key down and using the touchscreen for a special character. (Which, BTW, is actually a very welcome improvement over testbuild 2 where this wasn't possible at all).

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

Alright, so I have testbuild 11 flashed, and it appears to be working well. I've followed the instructions for an update, so my recovery image remains unchanged at from testbuild 2. Do I want to upgrade this or have there been no changes to the recovery image?

It's great to see all the improvements and fixes that build 11 comes with, especially the orientation switch on the keyboard slideout makes the phone feel so much faster, though there are many more welcome changes.

Regarding the keyboard I've been able to try out some initial things. There appears to indeed be a default Polish keyboard layout in LOS itself, which does work as expected with the Sym key acting like PC's AltGr key. This way all Polish characters are technically typable. It is however not very practical though, as I feared already. Since the Sym key is only present on the left of the keyboard, it makes over half the special keys very tedious to type. Polish has special characters on E, O, A, S, L, Z, X, C and N. To press both Sym and E, A, S, Z, X or C is pretty much impossible unless I'm resorting to some finger acrobatics. Now, if I understand correctly, we can make custom mappings at driver level for any FN + character combination. This would mean I can have all the Polish special characters show up when using the Slanted arrows. [Edit: Actually, I can't do this. There are obviously no DEFINEs in the kernel for the special characters, only for characters commonly found on keyboards physically.] There is one conflict though; the L key. If I remap FN+L to be ł (or Ł if combined with Shift) [Edit: Yeah so this isn't actually possible I think], I'm losing the / key. So I thought, alright well, in order not to lose any keys maybe the easiest solution would be to swap the functionality of the slanted arrows and the Sym key. That way all the yellow printed on the characters would be addressable at least via Sym (also via Shift for most), and it'd make the special characters that are used more often during regular conversation accessible via both the slanted arrows on either side of the keyboard. This however, does not appear to be possible with the current driver from what I see. Am I seeing this right? Does this mean I have to effectively modify the driver source code to swap these round and compile my own LOS image? Whilst I can do that, it does make things quite unmaintainable, especially once this all ends up in LOS official as for every update I'd need to pull in changes, merge them with the custom driver, and recompile an image. I do understand the motivation for the changes as they've happened since build 2 / stock image, and the consistency with PC keyboards and allowing LOS default layouts to work makes sense from a theoretical point of view, but with the physical Sym key being only accessible on one side of the keyboard (and being non-sticky), it does result in a very real practical issue for probably most keyboard layouts that actually do make use of the AltGr modifier. I'd argue it's less of an inconvenience to use either the Sym or FxTec-logo key for the yellow keys, as all yellow keys on the left side of the keyboard can also be inputted via Shift anyway.

What can I currently do to make this work a little better? Are there easier ways than recompiling the image, to swap the slanted arrows and the Sym key? Can I make the Sym key sticky perhaps? It'd still result in slower combination input than using the slanted arrows, but at least it'd be usable. Or maybe I can change the behaviour of just the right slanted arrrow key at least, somehow? I'm willing to work on several different layers of customisation, driver level or keyboard mapping or whatever, but ideally I'd be looking for something that lets me use the slanted arrows as AltGr and something else (Sym or FxTec logo) for the yellow printed keys, and something maintainable for future releases.

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

On 4/4/2020 at 5:31 AM, Craig said:

 

Since nobody has tried to answer, I'll do my best.

...

 

Thank you very much for the exhaustive reply, just the information I was looking for.

Sounds like I might need to put some work into it, but that I can get my keyboard working again as I've now gotten used to. I don't think I'll adjust FinQwerty for this again, it probably makes more sense if that maps with stock and adding stock/LOS variants to every FxTec layout would result in a mess. So I'm thinking of doing it the way this ROM lets us do it, at the driver level. That way I can have both slanted arrows combine with any of the character keys if I'm understanding correctly. I'll try out the built-in layouts that you mention first, but I expect the PL programmer's layout won't be part of it, and to be frank it is actually more comfortable to use the slanted arrow keys for it rather than Sym, as then you can use either hand for for the modifier key.

I'll flash the latest testbuild soon then, reinstall and reconfigure everything again, and I'll have a crack at the keyboard mapping. Once I get it working I'll share it of course. It'll be nice to have keyboard backlight working, the fingerprint sensor less hyperactive, the rotation working better (actually, I'm not sure, has that been implemented, sliding on rotation?), the dead zones on the curved parts of the screen, and an informative WiFi signal indicator :). And whilst my audio generally works fine and crackle-free, I do have a little issue with the volume being inconsistent between program runs, so hopefully that'll be sorted too with the upgrade. And those fancy keyboard shortcuts and other improvements I missed seem very interesting as well :).

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

On 3/21/2020 at 1:40 PM, auvo.salmi said:

It is intended to work that way. To be close to the same as in pc keyboard. So you should mostly forget the yellow markings on the keyboard and use shift+number shortcuts as they are on your pc. I'm too lazy to search the post for you, but if you search these pages for at least five pages back, you should find some discussion and explanation for this.

Ugh, I had typed a fairly length message and then accidentally closed my tab :(. Here goes another attempt.

I've been using test build 2 from this topic as a daily driver, ever since my phone was delivered to me. I've come to understand that from build 3 and onwards, a factory reset is needed and the phone needs to be reconfigured again. That's absolutely fine and to be expected at such an early stage in development, but I held out for a bit as I didn't have the time on my hands to do that to my daily driver back when the next few builds were coming out. Then after that, I saw the keyboard driver got tackled and huge changes were being made. There was quite a lengthy discussion and it appears that keyboard behaviour changed between builds, and I wasn't sure what it'd end up like. So again, I held back. I am using a layout I made for FinQwerty to be able to type Polish characters on my phone by using the Fnkey / slanted arrow keys along with a character. Shift+Fn is also used, as that's the uppercase version of a polish character. This mimics behaviour of PC keyboards, as there AltGr is used with characters to produce the same special characters. I've seen that since then the focus has shifted to other issues and improvements, some of which seem very interesting actually and I'm eager to try them out and just be in sync with the latest build again.

So the big question now is; has the keyboard driver and associated behaviour stabilised? What's its current status? Can I just use the same FinQwerty layout as before? I'm led to believe that I can't, due to the various changes. In fact, the message I quoted seems to insinuate that there's been a regression in functionality, in that the Fnkey now mimics the Shift key. Is this true? Is this on end-user level with the built-in layouts, and thus customisable with a different layout, or is this on driver level? I've read through all pages of this topic and I was trying to keep an accurate picture of the state it ended up at, but I got completely lost :). I'm fine with writing another keyboard layout similar to how I did for FinQwerty, if it's a one-off effort that I can keep using for the foreseeable while. But, is it still possible to have FnKey operate separately from the Shift keys, and is it possible to do so in an immediate, as in not dead/sticky, way? And what is the current procedure for making such a layout? I've seen bits about a special file with kernel keycodes being placed in a specific location somewhere, is that the recommended way? Will this persist across reboots? What about reflashes? Can I simply push this file via adb without any further modifications to the ROM? I really hope that it's at least possible to get my keyboard working again on the new build, as I have it working now, because I'd call it perfect as it currently is. Only too bad about the missing backlight and gyroscope-based orientation (rather than slider-based), but the typing capabilities do matter more to me.

Thanks for hearing me out and thank you in advance for explaining :).

[QWERTZ User Layout Setup]

I believe this may be somewhat relevant to the thread; I went and implemented a Polish programmer's keyboard layout for the QWERTY Pro1 based on FinQwerty. For anyone interested in the changes, they are in a pull request waiting for feedback and an eventual merge: https://github.com/anssih/finqwerty/pull/9 .

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

16 hours ago, tdm said:

I haven't really investigated keyboard things yet. I've been busy getting the vendor image working in order to fix a2dp. But I know that idealte put the keyboard config files in system instead of vendor, which is why its broken. I'll put them in my lineage vendor once it's working. As for other locales, I haven't tried at all yet.

Alright, thank you for the clarification. I'll be looking forward to your next testbuild, I've seen several fixes mentioned that you plan to incorporate into it.

For now, I've forked the FinQwerty project and added a Polish keyboard layout so I can type the required characters without relying on the missing special character popup from Android. This solves my usecase and may actually even be more convenient. If anyone's interested and capable of building Android packages, the required changes are here: https://github.com/anssih/finqwerty/pull/9 .

[LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds]

First of all, thanks for working on LineageOS support for this phone.

I've obtained the phone yesterday and I put your test build 2 of LOS on it and I've been playing around with it since. I noticed the WiFi symbol issue, but it doesn't seem to affect anything so that's nothing really. I did also notice the problem wih the / key, especially when typing URLs, which was a little problematic. When I then noticed that Esc and other modifier keys weren't working well on ConnectBot, I got FinQwerty's keyboards installed and I'm now using a US International one, this solves most of those issues.

One thing remains with the keyboard though, regardless of whether I'm using stock keyboard mappings or FinQwerty's, and that is that I can't type special characters from the locale I set the keyboard to. From my Photon Q and previous keyboard phones I'm used that if I long press for example an l, I see a menu popup with characters similar to it that I can then tap to insert, like the ł symbol. I normally use this to be able to somewhat comfortably type Polish on such a hardware keyboard. However, when on this build (not sure about stock Android, hadn't tried really) I long press a key, it just repeats itself endlessly. Is there any way to configure this behaviour? Is a modification to the OS required?