SPMWINKEL

iPod Touch and Pocket PC blog

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    This blog used to be about Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) related things, but I've since changed it so that I can cover iPod Touch related topics as well. Check the pages at the top of this blog to view a list of my installed software, or read more about this blog and me.
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Gesta skin 1.2 for Resco Keyboard Pro

Posted by spmwinkel on February 25, 2008

Update Apr 25th, 2008: After Resco started their skinning contest, .cab installers for the skin can now be downloaded from the Resco competition site here.

Update Feb 28th, 2008: With the very kind help of Juanma, there is now also a VGA version of the Gesta 1.2 skin!

Gesta1.2 default1After the initial release of my Gesta skin for Resco Keyboard Pro here, I’ve made one small adjustment here which added a backspace/delete button on the default keyboard view, but it made me split up the skin into two skins, because I thought I had to remove the Fx page in order to be able to add the Backspace/Delete key.

However, quickly after that I was asked why my skin doesn’t allow the user to tap-and-hold on the shift button to toggle Caps Lock. I found out that this required RKP 5.01 and a change in my skin, so I made this additional change and found out that this way I could also bring back the Fx page. This makes it unneccesary to have two seperate Gesta skins.

Gesta 1.2 still has all the advantages it had from the beginning, and some have been added with 1.2:

  • Portrait and Landscape support (QVGA only)
  • Optimized layout so it doesn’t cover too much of your screen, while keeping the keys as large possible for easy input
  • Zoom button preview
  • Pressed state, so even if you disable the Zoom preview you can see which button you’re pressing
  • Between the Space and Enter buttons, 4 frequently used characters are added to reduce the need to visit the 123 page. If you press Shift, there will be 4 additional characters, making a total of 8.
  • Speaking of the 123 page, it contains the numbers, logically ordered special characters, and access to the Calculator.
  • Tap-and-hold on the Shift key toggles Caps Lock on
  • Tap-and-hold on the 123 key accesses the Fx page

Click past the break to see screenshots of all the views in this keyboard skin.

Below you see the pressed state of the Shift button, all letters in CAPS, and the characters that appear if you use Shift on the four characters between the Space and Enter:
Gesta1.2 default_2

Below you see the 123 view in Portrait:
Gesta1.2 numsmall

Below you see the Calculator view in Portrait:
Gesta1.2 calc

Below you see the Fx view in Portrait orientation:
Gesta1.2 fx

Below you see the default view in Landscape mode:
Gesta1.2 defaultL

Below you see the 123 page in Landscape mode:
Gesta1.2 numsmallL

Below you see the Calc screen in Landscape:
Gesta1.2 CalcL

And finally, the Fx page in Landscape orientation:
Gesta1.2 FxL

115 Responses to “Gesta skin 1.2 for Resco Keyboard Pro”

  1. hamid said

    salam tanks

  2. spmwinkel said

    Just sent you the skin, along with all the people who requested the skin in the past. I wouldn’t want to put them through the trouble of requesting the skin again. :)

  3. Savage said

    Hi spmwinkel ,
    can you send me this skin for Resco Keyboard Pro?
    Is it an iSkin or only an “default” Keyboard Skin?
    Is there any way to change the layout into german? (QWERTZ)

    Greeds SavageDeath

  4. spmwinkel said

    Hi Savage, I just sent you the skin.

    I’m not sure what you mean by iSkin or default skin. It contains all the screens that can be seen above, and it uses a skin.ini to format the skin. This is Resco’s new skinning method, and this is also used for the iSkin, perhaps this is what you meant.

    I have no experience with French or German layouts but I just tested the following. In Resco Keyboard Pro options I picked German as Primary Language, and saved this. Then indeed the keyboard showed qwertz on the top row, so I think this answers your question! :)

  5. grigoris_a said

    Hi.Can you send me the skin please.Too bad its not in resco site.

  6. hacmi3u said

    thanks a lot ^_^

  7. Jack said

    Hi, I would like to get your very nice skin. Thank you!

  8. the joster said

    hey mate i love the skin you made, its what i have been lookin for! can you send it to me! thanks so much!!!!

  9. psyjohn said

    Got the updated skin you sent. Just wanted to say thanks!!

  10. Juan Manuel Garcia said

    Hi.

    I like your skin. It seems a great job.
    Could you please send it to me?

    Juanma.

  11. spmwinkel said

    Everyone up to this point should have received a message from me. :)

  12. Victor Tan said

    I love your Skin, can send to me.
    Thanks.

  13. kay said

    Send me the skin mate :) thanks!

  14. Victor Tan said

    Hi,
    Your black skin are beautiful, completely matching with the Wisbar Advance II’s theme “BlackWBA”
    Well Done!
    Thank you very much.
    Regards, Victor.

  15. Mike said

    Hello

    From the dutch dude here…..send the skin pleasse:-)

    Greetings Mike

  16. Andre said

    Hi

    I love your skin and it would be great, if you send it to me. Thanks

    grettings, andre

  17. dave said

    hi, pls send me the skin too pls.

    thanks for the great work

  18. spmwinkel said

    As always, everyone should have received the skin max. 24 hours after their comment/e-mail!

  19. Andre said

    Thanks a lot….

  20. Lance said

    can you pls send me a copy of the keyboard skin..
    i wouild say you work is very neat!!!
    tnx..

  21. spmwinkel said

    Hi Lance, the e-mail I tried to send to you bounced, are you sure you entered an existing e-mail address? Could you send me a message trough my Contact form (click About [me]/contact at the top) with a different e-mail address perhaps?

    A part of the message I got was:
    PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com.sg account.

    Thanks!

  22. feerio said

    Great job! Looks great and can’t wait to try it! Do send me a copy. Thanks..

  23. xxeyes said

    Hi!
    Well done and well designed.
    Resco is cool but needs more skins like your’s.

    please send me a copy… Thanks

  24. xdalaw said

    Hi Stefan-

    Would you mind shooting a copy of your cool skin? Thanks.

    – Andrew

  25. kris said

    could you send me that skin

    thanks
    kris

  26. spmwinkel said

    Hi Andrew, good to see you here!
    I’ve sent the skin to you and the others – thanks all for your comments!
    xxeyes – if only Resco would think the same…..

  27. fun_thomas said

    Hi spmwinkel :)
    would you be so kind and send me your beautiful skin?
    I can’t wait to try it, it looks very good :)
    Thank you very much

    Tomas

  28. xdalaw said

    Thanks Stefan. Got and it and LOVE it!
    - Andrew

  29. feerio said

    Copy received. Superb, superb keyboard skin! Great job indeed. Hope to see more great keyboard skins from u in the future. Cheers..

  30. koukirydr said

    Hi, very nice skin you made!
    May i please get a VGA copy? Thanks

  31. Simba71 said

    could you send me that skin

    thanks

  32. IcoIeo said

    Greate and elegant skin, without lose any friend usage.

    Thanks

  33. spmwinkel said

    Icoieo the email I tried to send you bounced, could you post another comment with a working email address?

  34. Jian said

    hi,
    that’s a great looking skin for kbpro. would appreciate if you can share it with me. thanks

  35. thanh long said

    thank so much for sharing

  36. Amneet said

    Hey man, could you send me the skin? Thanks :D

  37. Alan said

    looks good…can you send me a copy please ???

    Thanks

  38. Robin said

    Amazing – please send a copy, thanks!

  39. Pat said

    Hey this is a good skin on a qvga device the original skin is quite painful it blocked half the screen. Please send the skin for download

  40. sureshp said

    Hi can I have a copy of your excellent Gesta skin 1.2 for Resco Keyboard Pro for VGA device ? Can it support foreign layout like french ?

  41. marcell said

    Great man. I hope you’re using your laptop right now.

  42. sureshp said

    Thank you for the kick reply. this skin is great

  43. CCS said

    Excellent looking skin! I was wondering, since I type web addresses a lot on my PDA, would it be possible for me to make “/” more prominent on the main theme, either through a skin.ini hack or otherwise?

    P.S.

    Please send your amazing skin. Thanks!

  44. spmwinkel said

    Hi CCS :)

    Please go into the skin.ini and take a look at the [Default] and [Default_L] sections (make the changes in both to make it work both in Portrait and Landscape mode).

    In there, you´ll find:

    12=103,92,20,25
    39=126,92,21,25
    49=149,92,21,25
    50=173,92,21,25

    and

    12=140,72,28,25
    39=171,72,28,25
    49=202,72,29,21
    50=233,72,29,21

    These are the lines defining the four special characters between the Space and Enter keys.
    So simply change 12, 39, 49 or 50 (the one you want to replace with the / character) with 51, which is the number for the / character in the US layout.

    Save your changes, and go in and out of Resco Keyboard Pro settings to reload the skin. This should do the trick!

    P.S. Thanks all for your comments! I don´t respond to everything here, I think it´s more important that I respond to everyone by sending the skin through e-mail. ;-)

  45. CCS said

    Awesome! Thank you for the exquisite skin and great tip, spmwinkel!

  46. cincy1020 said

    Hi:
    Great Looking skin!
    I would love a copy of it.
    Thanks!!

  47. cincy1020 said

    Hi:
    I thought I’d suggest you may try putting your skin on xda-developers.com
    It would get alot of exposure there, and would be easy for people to download. You are able to attach both cab files, and zip files there.

  48. spmwinkel said

    Cincy – Hi :)
    I’ve considered that, but I guess that if I post it there, there’s no need at all for Resco to put it on their site anymore. I really want it there but Resco simply doesn’t reply to me. :(
    And if I post it somewhere else for download, why would Resco host it then? Which is what I would like the most, in the end.

    I do realize that it’s harder for people to get the skin now, but that’s only because Resco doesn’t reply to my topic in their forums, and to the e-mails I’ve sent them. If Resco would have replied saying they want to host my skin, they can have it on their site. If they clearly say they don’t want to host the skin, I’ll post it to XDA-developers or something like that.

    Just sent it to you as well. :-)
    Thanks for your interest!

  49. McCune said

    Looks really good! Would like to try your skin if you would e-mail it to me :D

  50. cincy1020 said

    Hi:
    Thanks so much for the skin, looks great.
    I completely understand what you are saying. Frankly I am amazed that Resco hasn’t added it to their site. You would think more skins would make for a better product.
    Anyway, thanks again :)

  51. Hoschi said

    Looks really good! Would like to try your skin if you would e-mail it to me !

  52. Ribag said

    Hi spmwinkel,

    Great skin!!
    Just one question.
    Please help me how to change the skin.ini to get the ‘/’ and ‘\’ caracters right after the space?

    I’m using a hungarian layout, and a can’t figure out what is the code for this keys.

    Now there are the following caracters: ‘ü’ and ‘á’.

    Regards,
    Ribag

  53. spmwinkel said

    Hi Ribag, glad you like the skin!
    If you look up a few comments, you can see my reply from March 15th, 2008 at 7:41 pm. In there I mention 4 keys, you should be interested in changing 12 and 39 in your case.

    Now the HU layout had the / character on key 7 and \ on key 56. So if you switch 12 and 39 to 7 and 56, you should get partly there. However, the / and \ characters are not on the main position for these keys, so you’ll probably see “6″ and “í” instead. “Shift 6″ should get you the / character which is the secondary character for key number 12. But since the \ character is the third character key 56, you probably won’t be able to get it using Shift. Perhaps the aZ key toggles through the letters so you can get the \ character?

    Sorry, my skin is based on the US layout which is decently documented on the Resco website, but when it comes to German, French, Hungarian etc. layouts all I can do is guess.

  54. Ribag said

    Dear spmwinkel,
    Thx for Your reply. Finally it is clear, how does it work! :-)
    I modified the mentioned positions like this:
    15=103,92,23,25
    49=126,92,21,25
    50=149,92,21,25
    52=171,92,23,25

    I put the TAB key to the first position, then follows the ‘,’ and ‘.’ characters and finally the CTRL key (I use it very often to copy/paste).
    Also I changed the width of the two function key to 23.

    Everything works like a dream, i’m very happy now! :-)

    Thx!

  55. spmwinkel said

    I´m so happy to hear that!

    In the end working with the skin file is not really hard, it just takes some time to investigate and understand the logic.

    Using these steps, everyone can customize their layout. The important thing is that you can always take a look in the language file for your language, in the Resco Keyboard Pro installation folder, to see which key code matches your character.

  56. Thomas Sirchia said

    I would love to get a copy of this skin. It’s the best looking skin i’ve seen. Please send soon, I’m anxious to show it to my friends. Thank you in advance for the great work.

  57. Dave said

    This skin looks really good to me. Could send the latest version to me.

  58. damien said

    Nice looking skin. I might actually buy the keyboard program just to use it.

  59. Zvonimir said

    Hi, spmwinkel ,
    your skin looks absolutely superior to those provided by Resco. Could u send me latest version.
    Thank you very much.

  60. Paul Bacik said

    Great looking skin

    Especially like the larger Key layout

    I would appreciate being sent a copy

  61. Joe said

    Hi, very nice skin could you please send me the QVGA Version.
    Thanks

  62. bronx said

    hi there Mate!

    I just simply love Yer keys! any chance to have them?? pretty please??? :)

  63. Servi said

    Hello,

    Can you please send me your very nice looking skin? Thanks!

  64. Sphere3d said

    Wow, wonderful skin.. I’ve been looking for a nice large and beautifully designed keyboard. Yours is just great.. Please send me the QVGA skin… Thanks so much..

  65. ddn2003 said

    Please send the QVGA skin to me. Thanx in advance!

  66. ddn2003 said

    Also, please add a CTRL key in future releases.

  67. spmwinkel said

    The problem is that there is no space for a Ctrl key. However, if anyone wants to replace any of the existing keys for the Ctrl key, the steps to do that are explained above. The Ctrl key has key code 52, so just replace any of the current button codes with 52. :)

  68. breley said

    Hey spmwinkel, I’d love to give your skin a shot!

  69. peteborota said

    Fantastic skin, improves a strong product.

    Well done.

    Any chance of a copy??

    Please

  70. andreas said

    The skin looks great, resco should provide it for download..
    As that doesn’t seems to be an option yet, could you kindly send me a copy.
    Is there a way to get the Characters äöü for German in the first place, when touching the “aZ” Button? (Now it starts with Spanish, goes to Italian, French, then German).

  71. Saumaun said

    Wow! Great looking skin! I would definitely appreciate a copy!

    Has Resco contacted you about including it on their website?

  72. spmwinkel said

    No, never heard anything from them. :(
    I could understand it if they didn’t receive my e-mails, but I also posted messages on their forum and they do reply to other people.

  73. Dennis said

    Nice skin!!!!!!! Please could you send me the skin? Many many many thanks in advance!!!!

  74. Hafti said

    This skin looks really good. Could the latest version on German for me in the first place.

  75. Filipe said

    Hiya!
    I’ve been using a different skin until now which covers up nearly the whole screen.
    Yours looks really nicer and i love the black colour of the theme.

    Could you please send me the download link or the file? Thanks in advance!

  76. Aldine Yap said

    I have tried the skin. I like it.. thank you..

  77. John said

    Hey, I would appreciate it if you can send me the skin. Thanks.

  78. konandrio said

    Please send me. Thanks.

  79. Mike said

    Great Skin,If Possible ,May I Have a Copy For Testing,Thanks,Regards

  80. Chris said

    Hey! This skin looks great. Please can you send it to me? Thanks!

  81. Javier Riquelme said

    Hi, is the most beautiful Skin i ever see!!!…

    I’m from Paraguay, South America… can you send me this skin to my email?

    Thanks!

  82. Nandesh Mansingka said

    hi, really nice skin.. really well made..

    can u please email the skin to me..

    Thanks

  83. Pk said

    Nice Job!!!

    Very well done.

    Can I have a copy?
    Thanx a bunch.

  84. Mangesh said

    hey man!!!! that’s a col skin. It has a iphone keyboard look. Can you plz send me a copy of the skin………? thanx in advance……

  85. Hinews said

    Wonderful!!!

    Can you send me too VGA version, please ?

    Thanks, from Hinews!

  86. Hermes said

    Nice skin, should blend wonderfully with HTC black theme. Can you please send me a copy of the skin.

    Thanks.

  87. Kayman said

    Hi there. Great skin. Could you please send me a copy? Thanks in advance.

  88. Daniel Long said

    GREAT work – thank you!

    Would you be so kind to shoot me a QVGA copy so I can admire it “in life and in person?”

    Thank you very much,

    Daniel

  89. Daak said

    great skin would be great to receive the download
    thanks for your hard work

  90. GreenGuava said

    Hey Spmwinkel, I just came across your blog whilst searching an alternative to iSkin. Might I say that your skin looks very slick indeed! I especially like how your skin is a bit more compact compared to the iSkin which has alot of wasted empty space and took up a bit too much of the screen. I would very much appreciate it if you could email me a copy to try out. Keep up the good work and all the best in Resco skin contest (if and when they decide to organise it!). Look forward to more of your work in the future!

    Cheers!

  91. spmwinkel said

    Thanks a lot! Just sent you the skin is well. :)

  92. GreenGuava said

    Thanks for the email Spmwinkel, received and working! My first impressions are that it is the perfect sized soft-keyboard for stylus typing. It looks very nice on the screen and the keys are just about the right size to enable quick and accurate typing. The only thing that I found a little unusual to use was the positioning of the spacebar towards the left. It’s not that big a deal as I am already getting used to it, but I initially would have preferred a more centralised-right position (being right-handed). Other than that, everything is great. Would be nice if there were different colours available too, but I know it’s a work-in-progress and I don’t want to ask for too much :D

    Thanks again!

  93. spmwinkel said

    I see your point. :)
    Thinking about it, I first realize that I don’t want to separate the 4 special character buttons at the bottom. So the alternative would be to put it next to the Enter button, which indeed might look nicer. But on the other hand, it might make it easier to accidentaly press the wrong button (space or enter). On top of that, if you look at the numerical keyboard, you see that below the 4, there are three valuta keys. Moving the four special character keys from the regular keyboard to the left, would also mess up the numerical layout a bit. And considering that I’m in a busy period of time with college stuff, I don’t expect to be working on the Gesta skin in the coming weeks. So different colors certainly are not on the pipeline at the moment.

    However, changing colors is extremely easy when using GIMP, free image editing software. In case you (or anyone else) is interested in trying this, I can create some instructions on how to do this with GIMP. :) Really, installing GIMP is the hardest job. After that it only gets easier!

  94. 63holden said

    This skin looks great , I would love a copy
    Thanks

  95. 63holden said

    Just got your skin ,I love it
    Thanks for the quick reply too

  96. tom108 said

    looks great man! where can i get it? :)

  97. spmwinkel said

    I just sent it to you! :)

  98. KoukRydr said

    Your skin was great with VGA with my x51v’s, can you please send me the QVGA one for my phone? Thanks!

  99. S&T said

    I want a copy! thats nice!

  100. rizorido said

    Great skin BTW

  101. rizorido said

    Forgot to request it !!
    Please can you send me the skin?

  102. Thorn said

    I love the look of this skin. Can you please send me the qvga version. The links on Resco’s website seem to be down. Thank you.

  103. Garfield said

    Hello, we fixed the wrong links.

  104. coffeecancer said

    nice skins…
    can u send to me~

  105. adioph said

    very nice skin, and im very interested using it. could please it to me through my email, adioph@yahoo.com?

    thank you very much.

  106. Test said

    Thanks

  107. Gremeweenny said

    Is this gonna end someday??

  108. mc_hugo said

    hi, could You send me that nice skin ?

    thanks

  109. mr.arep said

    hi there. your skin is really awesome. will you send 1 copy for me? i’m using omnia sgh i900. Qvga.

    thx! =)

  110. Oleg said

    Really good skin. I just use some skins for Resco but your skin looks better. Please send it to me. Thanks in advance.

    Oleg. HP IPAQ214

  111. DonKroko said

    spmwinkel, Your keyboard looks great, send it to me PLZ

  112. Pim said

    Hi,

    Can u please sent me the skin ?
    My fingers will press 2 buttons at once now…hope this will solve it :)

  113. spmwinkel said

    Hi Pim,

    As stated at the total top of the post, the skin can be downloaded directly from the Resco site.

    Enjoy!

  114. yao wei said

    Do you have a wqvga version? i need it for my omnia. Much appreciated if you can send it to me :)

  115. spmwinkel said

    Hi, thanks for your interest. :)

    Unfortunately I abandoned this project a long time ago, and I don’t even know if there were WQVGA devices back then. If you want you could download the existing skin(s) from the Resco site, and stretching the images shouldn’t be a big problem, but reconfiguring the skin text file is really annoying. For every key in every view you need to assign the area where a tap on the screen should register a certain keypress. And that can only be done when you have an actual device with the specific screen resolution. (That’s also how the VGA version was created, it was resized by someone with a VGA screen who could assign each key pixel by pixel).

    I’m sorry that I can’t help you with this. :/

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