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brilliant! I’ll share this with my kid, he couldnuse this. Thanks, David!
Sort of off topic but I wonder whether anyone has used two 10-key pads turned sideways as a cheap-o split ergo keyboard.
@trevorflowers This interesting, but I'm not sure technically how one could match two similar keypads (assuming it is the same model, for aesthetic) because the evdev:input: identifier on top of the two hwdb files would be the same, and then the one with the filename sorted in last would overwrite the config of the first.
But it could work in theory with two differents keypad product (and probably require a lot of planning too 😅 ).
Indeed, it seems so far out of the normal use path that there would be trouble. Perhaps two pads that are minor revisions of the same model would look alike but have different IDs. I'm pretty sure that this is a silly idea. 😹
@trevorflowers Probably doable if they have unique serial numbers... which unfortunately is unusual for keyboard/mouse peripherals, *but* would be easy enough to add to something with customizable firmware (QMK being popular).
@trevorflowers Given how easy QMK is to customize (see links in my edited reply above), how easy it is to lay out a simple keyboard PCB, and how inexpensive they are to manufacture these days, I'd probably lean toward building custom stuff here rather than using keypads turned sideways (which I suspect would feel kinda weird to type on).
@swetland Oh, for sure. I just like the idea of pulling a couple of ten-keys out of the $1 pile and turning them into a "fancy" split ergo with basically no effort.
@swetland It may be time for a trip to my local PC refurbisher, Re-PC. I don't know why my brain latches onto this sort of thing, but here we are.
@trevorflowers @swetland Oh yes, this is fun. 😆 One of my next project will use a Keypad again; I saw in the list of possible keys https://hal.freedesktop.org/quirk/quirk-keymap-list.txt all the f13 to f22 function keys. I want now an extra bonus Fkeys addon to map many shortcuts on my softwares. I made a quick test: it will work also with OBS for a cheap live stream deck.

Hi Deevad, I just want to point out that USB VIDs are not unique to every keyboard but every product at best and every product that uses a certain microcontroller at worst.

That said I'm not sure what a better solution would be 😀 Just keep it in mind that someone could theoretically lose the draw and have two of the same VIDs

@jookia Hey Jookia, thanks for the feedback. I'll fix the article 👍

Great!

Also not sure why I called you deevad haha 😀

@jookia That's my name on IRC, and we spent a lot of time discussing on it, maybe it is your muscle memory. Totally fine. 😊
This is such wonderful info. Thanks a million!
what a beautiful, interesting and useful project.
Thanks for sharing
It looks very useful for drawing outdoors :blobcateyescoffee: Also I love how you painted the keypad, it looks so fun!
Bookmarking for later.
Could come handy for my video editing stuff.

This is freaking awesome, David! Thanks!

I'm intrigued what editing and motion graphics things I could do with this idea...

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
thanks for sharing. Amazing idea
Hey - I use something similar, buttons don't look as nice, but programming it was so much easier with the GUI program Input Remapper:
https://github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper/releases

Also available in Debian and Ubuntu, but not the latest version, I suppose.

It can also assign keycombos and keyboard sequences to keys. Super cool tool!

@Moini Oh! very cool, thanks for sharing. I'll have a look at it. 👍
@Moini wait, so I can use this to turn a generic numpad into a macro pad?
@AlexanderMars @Moini I just made a quick test and WOW. https://github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper is amazing. The README has install method for Fedora and it was easy to install. It works really well and detect my Keyboard, my Xp-Pen buttons, button on my USB microphone! It really can input macros (multiple keys, composed shortcuts, and special keys) and you can have multiple presets for the same device. It cannot neutralize devices with hardcoded multiple keys (expected). I'll update the article with a note 😍
@Moini I think every #krita #inkscape #gimp user would want to know about this. Just need a cheap numpad and you have a custom macro deck. Gotta star the hell out of that project!
This kind of setup is a godsend for lefties. I developed a similar one during the years for Krita. And recently I've found a keypad that has the the whole right side of a keyboard, which is quite convenient.
I'm also using a similar setup in Blender, and the nice thing there is that you can use any key as a modifier, so 0+keys can be used for example for additional stuff.
Nupad keyboard layout for Krita for southpaws
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
@bszlrd Cool device with all that keys! I'm jealous of the arrows directional keys (and page up/page down); if I had those on my pad, I could use it as a gaming pad in transport too xD
It is a Satechi bluetooth keypad, and not too expensive even. Although I found that it can lag sometimes, and I'm not yet sure what's causing that.
And oddly enough the Delete key starts Firefox for some reason 😁
Numerical keyboard
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
And out of curiosity, how sturdy is the nail polish on the keys? I thought about customizing my keypads, but it never occured to me to use that.
@bszlrd Nail polish is very resistant; I already customised buttons with that and they never erased or went to powder.The bright colors might catch a bit of dirt over time from fingers,but it's washable. The main drawback are about how thick and hard to apply for making clean details, and also the fact that acetone or any product to wash the nail polish might attack and start diluating the plastic too. So, it's hard to erase. It's possible, but probably would require to sand the key again after.
That's pretty dang neat. I had no idea the Yogas could enable such fine work.
i have the same laptop as yours, did you manage to make the fingerprint reader work?
@portugalense No, I noticed it, but as I'm not using it I haven't even tried. I remember the Arch wiki had something about it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_Yoga_370
fedora not same s arch , and i already tried and honeslty gave up thank you non the less 😊
@portugalense https://gist.github.com/borcean/f32c47f6cc52cee33dfc2265ce63f777 try this, worked on my x380 yoga and the 370 seems to have the same sensor
@lexd0g @portugalense Thanks Alice for the link, I'll bookmark and test. 👍
Maybe try KMonad or Kanata. They provide a lot of the functionality of a QMK keyboard, e.g. different functions for tap/hold, tap-dancing, layers, mapping to key combinations, etc., with a much more readable configuration.
@omidmnz Thanks for the guidance to better method. Do you have a tutorial in mind about them for beginners?
@omidmnz 😺 I found it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhj1eauljwU
that's a good one. Be sure to at least skim the documentation though. You might find features uniquely useful for your workflow that might not be as appealing to a programmer.

that is a nice idea…

now I'm thinking about if it were possible to use a bluetooth one as a remote for #HomeAssistant

😃

@drazraeltod Oh, let me know if you find info about this, this is interesting.
@drazraeltod Update! I had this bluetooth gamepad at home (a cute mini 8BitDo Zero 2 https://www.8bitdo.com/zero2/) and if I put it in keyboard mode; evtest catches the events and gives the product/vendor info (not listed in lsusb).
I also got feedback about an utility 'input-remapper' that makes all of the setup easy with a GUI. So it should work with bluetooth keypad as well following the same method. I updated the article.

Nice. Thanks for the evdev writeup (and FWIW, the package name in Arch-alikes is 'evtest' instead of 'evdev'). I knew that kind of thing was possible, but had never put in the time to figuring it out.

And the paintjob is fun. I bet doing it that way actually helps burn the connection into your brain, too.

@screambiogenesis Thanks! And oh, I just had a check at my `dnf history` and the package is evtest too. That's a big typo, thanks for finding it, I'll fix now. 👍
Nice, my coworkers are still amazed that I got my Wii UDraw tablet to work on the computer. Though that is more hardware hacks if anything.
looks great. I never see cheap numpads here, because nobody seems to use them. Saw them only in an online shop and they were almost as expensive as regular keyboards
@alchemicacht Thanks! Maybe they are easy to find in France because the Azerty layout needs an extra step (pressing shift) to activate numeric; so it is not easy to make accounting or office work from laptop. On the Fr refurbished market place , I can find tons of them from 1 to 5€ https://www.leboncoin.fr/recherche?category=15&text=clavier%20num%C3%A9rique&price=1-5

This is great, nobody should have to buy Stream Decks and the like!

I got myself a FaunchPad and a Butter Stick from gboards.ca a while back for similar purposes, but they seem to be down. :/ They offered some affordable small keyboards runnig QMK!

@SigmaOne Oh 😮 If you have access to a 3D printer, you'll make wonders with it.
I just tested the setup with a https://www.8bitdo.com/zero2/ (it has a keyboard mode that evtest or input-remapper catches); because it is wireless and its size, it's a good mini remote command for shortcut. I think I'll paint mine this week-end. 😆

Génial ! C'est tout ce qui manquait pour vraiment profiter du mode tablette du thinkpad.

Merci!

Super interessant. Je n'ai pas de pavé numérique sous la main mais bien un MakeyMakey. Votre tuto me permettra d'aller plus loin que la fonctionnalité remap qui y est intégrée.
Merci 😀
@vertenote Je conaissais pas ce projet, c'est trop cool comme sensor. Merci pour le partage 🙂
now I know what to buy and do on sunday

@raghukamath 😉 Cool!

Here I'll customize also an https://www.8bitdo.com/zero2/ gamepad I have. I saw the event listed on evtest this morning. Because it is super small and wireless (and also less buttons), this one will be for my desktop computer, when I have my left hand in a position not on the keyboard or the shortcut keys of the tablet.

I love the paintjob! I wanna do something similar, good to know that the nail polish holds up. Did you use any special technique for painting the plastic or just the brush and palette seen here?
@tibi Thanks! I only watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0gTkPAkFIs (or quickly browsed into it), I used also toothpick to make dots, and I found that a little drop or two of dissolvent (acetone) help to fluidify a bit if the liquid become to thick. Also, my mistake: trying to put yellow on top of black; I had to do three layer because my yellow is not really very covering well. If I knew, I would have started with a first pass of white, then yellow on the top. Two layers, less wobbly.
@tibi
all very useful info, thank you! as an aside i like how the nail polish here can create tactile bumps on the keys
@tibi Oh yes, big dots are indeed very useful for that. I used them on my previous stylus that was really flat https://www.davidrevoy.com/data/images/blog/2023/2023-06-27_lenovo-370-on-linux_stylus-customisation_net.jpg
@tibi
One thing you could do to turn this into something more like a MacroPad is to bind your NumPad keys to shortcuts in a script for an AutoHotKey port for GNU/Linux (for example, AHK_X11 ( https://github.com/phil294/AHK_X11 ) is what I used, and should work for any X11-based distro). The NumPad keys don't get registered by anything other than the AHK interpreter, so you don't have to worry about them accidentally triggering some other action they were bound to.

@yoyunix Thanks for sharing this tool!

But I think I found the ultimate tool for macro: the one I tested this morning https://github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper thanks to the comment of Moini (and added it to the article, you probably saw it). It's X11/Wayland compatible, has a GUI , presets and can also do complex macro (even mixing keyboard and mouse click, or macro with 'wait' between actions so I can do combo of shortcut keys.

Oh! I didn’t see that, and it looks a lot simpler than my suggestion 😅.
@yoyunix That was also my feeling when I tested it this morning after I spent a big time in the udev/hwdb documentation and tweaking :blobcat:
are there any good starting tutorials you recommend on a Linux-based drawing software/hardware stack? My partner draws and has been looking for a while.
@phil Hey, check the video pinned on my profile, it's a project from A to Z detailed with Krita with a first part about the setup. For the hardware part, I document everything I can here: https://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?tag/hardware
I wish good luck, patience (and a bit of necessary obstination) to make the switch! 🙂
@phil
that's so cool. I'm thinking about doing something like that for streaming
Oh this is so cool! Can I ask you which pen you're using on that Thinkpad?
Thanks! Sure, from the top of my brain, it's a Wacom Bamboo Ink Plus, I detail it on https://www.davidrevoy.com/article972/my-solution-for-mobile-digital-painting-on-gnu-linux . Their naming convention is a bit confusing, they have many products named bamboo, and ink , this one is the one that has a built-in battery you can charge with Usb-C.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)

cooool, j'avais pas vu passer cet article 🙂

Moi j'utilise les touches les plus à droite de mon mini clavier MIDI (bon du coup je les ai pas décorées vu que ça me sert aussi de vrai clavier de piano, mais bon), avec un script qui map le signal MIDI vers une combinaison de touches reconnue dans Inkscape (annuler, changer d'outil, etc.).

Looks fantastic. Here in this country, I have never seen an inexpensive numpad in use. I only ever came across these in an online store, and they were nearly as pricey as standard keyboards.
https://slopegame.net