Keyboard not always responding

[jtrenchard 0]

I got a Pro1 in my hands from Clove and honestly, I love it, but have not used the keyboard much because of one small problem.

I find when I am typing I am relying on a rollover effect and key-repeat delay, for example with one thumb i press one button, then use the other thumb to press another but am late to release the first thumb, and for some key combinations I find this blocks both inputs.

Can somebody confirm if this is a design of the key matrix, or if this is something I could look at fixing in software?

[netman 1,424]

I have looked at fixing this in software, last few commits here: https://github.com/netman69/android_kernel_idealte_msm8998/blob/lineage-16.0/drivers/input/keyboard/aw9523b.c
 

A patch was sent the right way already :).

[david 914]

1 hour ago, netman said:

A patch was sent the right way already :).

What does this mean? :-)

[MickH 211]

My keyboard quit out on me today, too and wouldn't respond at all to any key presses. I just restarted the phone and it all started working again. I just put it down to a hiccup.

[netman 1,424]

58 minutes ago, david said:

What does this mean? 🙂

That I have reason to believe it will come as part of an official update at some point :).

[david 914]

39 minutes ago, netman said:

That I have reason to believe it will come as part of an official update at some point :).

Nice.  Does that mean it will support multiple key presses at the same time (as a unique input), or that the second one will take over if they first one is still being pressed (which seems to be the problem to solve for what @jtrenchard reported)?

[netman 1,424]

21 minutes ago, david said:

Nice.  Does that mean it will support multiple key presses at the same time (as a unique input), or that the second one will take over if they first one is still being pressed (which seems to be the problem to solve for what @jtrenchard reported)?

Multiple keypresses, any combination of 2 works, combinations of 3 or more depends on their location due to a hardware limit, but the layout of keys that can block eachother is good enough that you woulnd't have trouble in most conceivable scenarios (including emulator gaming and the likes). Ctrl, shift, alt, and fn (the diagonal arrow) are fully independent of eachother and the other keys.

Edit: an additional detail is that if you press for example 3 keys where one of them does not register due to the other two being pressed the first ones pressed take priority, and if you let one of the two keys that did register go the one that got blocked will register. It'd be nicer if the last one pressed overrides a previous one, but I don't think that's possible due to hardware constraints.

Edited December 23, 2019 by netman

[netman 1,424]

Quick demo of my modified driver, keep in mind i'm also limited by the my thumbs and trying somewhat randomly to press this and that to give an idea what is possible.

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by netman

[david 914]

22 minutes ago, netman said:

Multiple keypresses, any combination of 2 works, combinations of 3 or more depends on their location due to a hardware limit, but the layout of keys that can block eachother is good enough that you woulnd't have trouble in most conceivable scenarios (including emulator gaming and the likes). Ctrl, shift, alt, and fn (the diagonal arrow) are fully independent of eachother and the other keys.

Great job!

[enPfzr4v 239]

@netman is the community developer we need, but don't deserve!

[david 914]

16 minutes ago, netman said:

Quick demo of my modified driver, keep in mind i'm also limited by the my thumbs and trying somewhat randomly to press this and that to give an idea what is possible.

 

Interesting tool.  I notice limitations even on my laptop keyboard with some combinations.  And the tool does *seem* to have some cases where it isn't working right.  If I hold down control-alt-shift and press D, for instance, the D does not light up blue, but it does show that it is being pressed above.  If I'm understanding that correctly, it could make testing the Pro1 combinations a little more difficult, since you'll have to look above to see what it is doing.  I guess it is possible it can read the key-up event, but not the key-down event in that case?

[netman 1,424]

2 minutes ago, david said:

Interesting tool.  I notice limitations even on my laptop keyboard with some combinations.  And the tool does *seem* to have some cases where it isn't working right.  If I hold down control-alt-shift and press D, for instance, the D does not light up blue, but it does show that it is being pressed above.  If I'm understanding that correctly, it could make testing the Pro1 combinations a little more difficult, since you'll have to look above to see what it is doing.  I guess it is possible it can read the key-up event, but not the key-down event in that case?

There's a keydown for every key-up, at least in the driver I had a stab at :D. And yeah there are some limitations to that page, I did various tests but this one is the most clear and visually pleasing :).

[david 914]

1 minute ago, netman said:

There's a keydown for every key-up, at least in the driver I had a stab at :D. And yeah there are some limitations to that page, I did various tests but this one is the most clear and visually pleasing :).

To be clear, I was talking about my laptop keyboard.  I don't have a Pro1.  I'll give that page a shot on my Relay 4G sometime to see if it has any limitations.  If your change makes it into an update from fxtec, that should certainly handle any lingering key-downs blocking a new key-down when someone is just trying to type.  And it seems like, as you said, there are plenty of many-key-combinations available for use in games, assuming they allow custom mapping of actions to combinations.

[netman 1,424]

1 minute ago, david said:

To be clear, I was talking about my laptop keyboard.  I don't have a Pro1.  I'll give that page a shot on my Relay 4G sometime to see if it has any limitations.  If your change makes it into an update from fxtec, that should certainly handle any lingering key-downs blocking a new key-down when someone is just trying to type.  And it seems like, as you said, there are plenty of many-key-combinations available for use in games, assuming they allow custom mapping of actions to combinations.

Most of the emulator games and such allow remapping, and I think you'd be fine being unaware of the limitation since most keys that can block eachother are quite nearby to eachother, things like diagonals on wasd keys (actually wazs seems way more practical on pro1 but that's another discussion) pose no problem, even while using keys on the other side like jikm etc as abxy buttons. Unless the game in question is fixed to a very awkward unfortunate mapping I forsee no problems :-).

[silversolver 849]

2 hours ago, netman said:

That I have reason to believe it will come as part of an official update at some point :).

You are THE man. Have you also sent it to @tdm so he can add it to his LineageOS build?

[netman 1,424]

1 minute ago, silversolver said:

You are THE man. Have you also sent it to @tdm so he can add it to his LineageOS build?

I believe he is aware :).

[tdm 2,322]

Yes I'm aware of the work @netman is doing on the keyboard. I'll incorporate it in due time, after I get the vendor image built and voice calls work.