On-Screen Keyboard Template

Introduction
On-Screen Keyboard Template  for Clarion 5-10... ABC/Legacy. This is a white box template which instantly enables Windows' on-screen keyboard (osk.exe) in all prompts of your application. Here's a screenshot on the right.

So if you want to build a touch-screen application, or just allow your customers do everything with a mouse, this template is for you!

To test it, please download the demo or just run osk from the Start->Run
Our on-Screen Keyboard template is just a wrapper for Windows On-Screen Keyboard. 
So if you want to decide quickly whether this template is  going to work for you, please
launch the on-screen keyboard on top of your application. Usually it can be found here:
Start - Programs - Accessories - Accessibility - On-Screen Keyboard.
Or, if you are "DOS-kinda-guy", just run osk from Start - Run:
The template functions to enable this keyboard in all application procedures 
in a matter of seconds. We don't want to spoil it for you so just play
with the keyboard settings to see what it can do.
Those are just 2 possible views:
Main advantages:
  • Speed with that On-Screen Keyboard can be
    incorporated into your application
  • Option to customize it on a procedural level
  • Option to globally enable/disable this feature at run-rime
  • As all vivid templates, this one is an open box template that doesn't require
    any changes to native (or any other) Clarion templates.
    It is one of our taboos!
  • Can be used to launch any executable on any Alert Key event
Installation
Run the installation wizard. It will guide you through a few simple steps. That is it.
IMPORTANT: If you are using Clarion 5-6, after selecting Clarion5-Clarion6 directory wizard
will offer to install it into C:\Clarion5(6)\Clarion8 or C:\C55\Clarion8 directory respectively. 
So don't forget to remove the last \Clarion8. But even if you do - no problem.
Just uninstall the template and re-run the installation.
To start using the template you need to manually register it.
To do this: Open Clarion (no application must be open). 
Go to menu Tools (Setup) -> (Edit) Template Registry -> Register. 
Select new template onscreen.tpl and then hit Open button.
You can find it in Clarion7(8,9,10...)\accessory\template\win
for Clarion 7 and in Clarion*\Template - for all others.
View our animated reminder on how to do this - Registering Template
(built with our JAVA Animated Help Builder).

Using Template

Template usage is very straightforward.
1. Open Global -> Extensions and insert On-Screen Keyboard Global template.
That is about it! So if you're happy with the default template settings:
that is all you have to do. The osk program is a default and it opens on a
double-click (double-touch) event at any prompt. The template generates a true global flag
OSK:NoKeyboard (visible in all DLLs of multi-dll application), so you can use it to 
enable/disable template functionality at run-time. Please bear in mind that as soon as
you Ok this global extension, the template broadcasts those default settings to all application
procedures. So to change global defaults after this you have to delete this global
extension and insert it once again with new defaults. For example you might
want to reset default Alert Key to F2 or any other key.
It is important to understand that you shouldn't change anything at the procedural
level if you want to use global settings throughout an entire application.
We've provided these prompts just in case you decide to do something special, say
for instance, make one procedure to launch the keyboard on right-click. Or call 
another executable on an Alert event in all procedure prompts. We have made one Demo
procedure to call Windows' calculator (calc) just for the sake of the exercise. You can find the
Demo in Clarion*\Examples\Onscreen\
Or Clarion7(8,9,10...)\Lessons\Onscreen in Clarion 7-10....
You may wish to see how the template is meant to be used, but as
using it is so simple it's hardly likely you'll need to!
As we are eager to improve this template, any comments and/or suggestions you may have are most welcome: feedback
We'd particularly like to know what other jobs you have found for it!

 

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