[Users] oVirt/RHEV Android client (Opaque) available for beta testing

[i iordanov]

Hi Nathanaël and everyone else interested in keyboard layouts other than
English,

I really didn't like the idea of releasing Opaque into production
supporting only English (QWERTY), so I devised a method to get around a
current SPICE protocol limitation (only being able to transmit keyboard
scan codes and not unicode to the VM). It involves Opaque translating
unicode characters on-device according to a user-specified layout into a
series of scan codes. Currently English (QWERTY), German (QWERTZ), and
French (AZERTY) are fully supported including all AltGr and dead-key
combinations.

I encourage all users of the supported layouts to give them a thorough
beating and let me know of any issues. I'd also like to hear your opinions
on whether such a solution can and should make it to production.

To use a layout other than English (default), long-tap on a connection to
edit it, then from the new drop-down select your desired layout. Once
connected to your VM, ensure that the chosen layout there matches the
layout you picked in the settings. For best results (i.e. for your Android
keyboard to offer you all the possible unicode choices that your layout can
produce), you should also use an Android keyboard that supports your
language. The layout on your phone is not at all important, because all I
need from the Android IME are unicode values, however, I must say that I
find Hacker's keyboard most flexible.

One caviat is that in order to be able to obtain the true unicode value
from the IME, I've had to interpret ALT meta state as belonging to the
KeyEvent rather than something that should be passed on to the VM. The
reason for this is that on Android, some characters like the German "ß"
appears as ALT+s to me, and that's the only way to properly capture it. In
fact, if you type ALT+s manually, while using the German layout, you will
get a "ß" on the remote side.

Hence, the Hacker's keyboard ALT cannot be used as an ALT. Thankfully,
though, there is a nice workaround. The on-screen ALT button is exempt from
such considerations and works just fine.

Once the project gains a larger user-base, I expect that interested people
will be able to help me create their own keyboard layout map files. The
final format will be documented and the documentation will be available in
the source distribution.

Everyone, thank you very much in advance for your input!

Sincerely,
iordan




On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Nathanaël Blanchet <blanchet at abes.fr>wrote:

>  Le 06/12/2013 17:31, Nathanaël Blanchet a écrit :
>
>  Hi, just tested it, it is an unexpected good idea!
> My ovirt server is ssl only, so it was a bit complicated to get
> /etc/pki/ovirt-engine/ca.pem.
> I think it could be great to add a browser to get the ca into the
> filesystem instead of searching it into the phone, virtual keyboard is not
> convinient to type long inputs.
> Then, opaque's keyboard regional layout gave me headache. It is default
> qwerty but I need french layout, and no option to change it in the app is
> available. So, I changed the android layout keyboard into qwerty, but at
> this time while the keyboard is physically qwerty, I get a "A" for "Q", so
> it is always inversed. Maybe I should change the spice server layout...
> So the idea is good but it is unusable with non US layout.
>
> Something else important : I only managed to login with admin at local and
> no external authentication (AD in my case) was possible since it is
> supported into the regular webadmin.
>
>  Le 06/12/2013 17:11, i iordanov a écrit :
>
>  Hi guys,
>
>  Just a clarification that Opaque is a VM console client, not an
> infrastructure management client.
>
> Cheers!
>  iordan
>
>
>  On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 12:38 PM, i iordanov <iiordanov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Hello,
>>
>> We invite any interested oVirt/RHEV developers and administrators to
>> beta-test Opaque, a new Android oVirt/RHEV client application.
>>
>> To opt in, please reply to this message with an email address associated
>> with a Google Account, because joining the beta-test group is based on
>> membership to a Google Plus community. If you don't want that email address
>> posted to the mailing list, don't include it in your reply!
>>
>> Itamar or I will add you to the community and let you know that you can
>> proceed to the following two steps:
>>
>> 1) Please visit this page here to accept the invitation:
>> https://plus.google.com/communities/116099119712127782216
>>
>> 2) Once you've become a member of the Google+ group, to opt-in, visit:
>> https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.undatech.opaquebeta
>>
>> You will be able to download Opaque from Google Play by following the
>> link at the bottom of the opt-in page.
>>
>> Please share your experiences with Opaque to the mailing list!
>>
>>  Cheers,
>> iordan
>>
>> --
>> The conscious mind has only one thread of execution.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> The conscious mind has only one thread of execution.
>
>
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>
> --
> Nathanaël Blanchet
>
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing listUsers at ovirt.orghttp://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
>
> --
> Nathanaël Blanchet
>
> Supervision réseau
> Pôle exploitation et maintenance
> Département des systèmes d'information
> 227 avenue Professeur-Jean-Louis-Viala
> 34193 MONTPELLIER CEDEX 5 	
> Tél. 33 (0)4 67 54 84 55
> Fax  33 (0)4 67 54 84 14blanchet at abes.fr
>
>
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-- 
The conscious mind has only one thread of execution.
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