Creating *.OK Layouts



Here's the OKey Main dialog. I won't explain it in details since there's nothing to understand here.
Basically in this screen you can load layouts files (2) and the name of the layout will appear in (1). Once a layout is loaded, you can enable (3) or disable it (4) whenever you want. The icon in the systray will appear greyed when disabled.
At your right you have the Options panel. OKey can create a shortcut in the \Windows\Startup foder so it will run when WindowsCE starts (i.e after a soft reset). Just check the (5) box and OKey will create the shortcut. Unchecking the box will make OKey to remove it.
Checking (12) will cause that OKey start fully minimized in the system tray.
When OKey is launched it will load the last layout you used if (6) is checked.
OKey layouts are files with the *.ok extension. Usually there shouldn't be any application associated with these files. Checking the (7) box will associate OKey with these files, so whenever you open a *.OK file OKey will be launched and the layout will be loaded.
Pressing (10) will show a window with the version number and some info about the development of OKey.
Pressing (11) will fully minimize Okey into the system tray. When fully minimized, you can tap ONCE on the systray icon to display a pop-up menu with some options.
That's for basic usage. However, you will probably like to create your own customized layout, with your own mappings and symbols according to the language you speak.
Pressing (8) will launch the layout Editor:

OKey will let you perform two kind of mappings:
  1. One-to-One mapping
  2. Unicode Combinations
Once you have finished with your layout, you'll need to give it a name in the textbox above the "Save..."(2) Button and press (2) for saving it into a file.

One-to-One Mapping

The most basic function offered by OKey is a one-to-one mapping (i.e each key will be translated into another one). "Mapping" A into B will cause that whenever you press A in your keyboard the system will be tricked to think that you really pressed B.
The Mapping Table is shown through lists (4) and (6). Whenever you select a key in the (4) list, the mapped value will be highlighted on the (6) column. Same goes in the other way.
To remap a key from the list (4) you can either: Once done any of either actions, the "->"(5) button will now read "..." indicating that is waiting for the new value. Press on your keyboard the key you want to be the mapping of the one you selected in (4).
If your keyboard doesn't have the Key you want to simulate or map you can use the provided Tool to simulate the keystroke. Select a key from list (13) and press Simulate Key(2). It has the same effect that the physical press of that key.


Unicode Combinations

UNICODE is a standard that defines a UNIQUE code for EVERY single character of every single language. WindowsCE handles Unicode for displaying text.
Since UNICODE defines thousands and thousands of characters it has been broken down into character ranges according to the language they belong. These tables can be found at http://www.unicode.org.
Different fonts available for computers implement different character ranges. That's why some fonts have characters that the other doesn't have. One of the most complete UNICODE fonts is the MS Arial Unicode which contains 51180 glyphs, a large subset of the UNICODE standard. The MS Arial Unicode font itself is about 30 MB in size.
In OKey you can create up to 256 Unicode combinations. The limit was stablished due indexing and memory issues, it may be expanded in future versions of OKey if needed. You can create key combinations or single keystrokes for generating Unicode characters.
Combinations implemented in the current layout are listed in (8).
In order to create a new combination for a given UNICODE character you'll need to follow these steps:
  1. Select from (12) the Modifiers (Keys to be held) for your combination (if any).
  2. Press the "Press a Key"(7) button. Now the button will read "...".
  3. Press in your keyboard (or use the Simulate Key tool to press) the key you want to use in combination with the modifiers selected in step 1.
  4. The pressed button will be shown below (7).
  5. Optionally select a font from (11) that you know it contains the character you want. It's just for properly displaying the character on the preview box.
  6. Search and select from (14) the Unicode character you want to assign to your combination. You can type the number if you know it or look for the character (may take you a long time if you don't know where it's most likely to be) by using the arrow keys.
  7. Once the character you want to assign is displayed on the preview box press the "Add" (9) Button to register the combination.
You can delete a combination any time by selecting it from (8) and pressing the "Delete" (10) Button.