Activate virtual keyboard on Windows

[yontala]

Hello and thanks for all the good work made by the team.

I use the 2.5.1 version on Windows and try to activate the virtual keyboard but it doesn’t work at all. As I read on the scummVm manuel I have to use the ctrl+F7 key but virtual keyboard should be enable.

My question is: how can I enable this virtual keyboard ?

Thanks in advance.

[Praetorian]

Hello and thanks for all the good work made by the team.

I use the 2.5.1 version on Windows and try to activate the virtual keyboard but it doesn’t work at all. As I read on the scummVm manuel I have to use the ctrl+F7 key but virtual keyboard should be enable.

My question is: how can I enable this virtual keyboard ?

Thanks in advance.

In order to use ScummVM's virtual keyboard, you need to be running a ScummVM build that was created with support for the virtual keyboard AND ALSO have a keyboard pack (vkeybd_default.zip or vkeybd_small.zip) directly inside in your ScummVM folder or the ScummVM Extras path, or a path set in your scummvm.ini using the "vkeybdpath" key.

I don't think the official version is built with support for the virtual keyboard.
To build ScummVM with support for the virtual keyboard you need to run the "configure" command with the switch "--enable-vkeybd" ie.

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./configure --disable-debug --enable-release --enable-vkeybd
make -j$(nproc)

and scummvm.ini "scummvm" sample section (only the relevant lines):

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[scummvm]
vkeybdpath=E:\WORKSPACE_\scummvm-official\backends\vkeybd\packs\
vkeybd_pack_name=vkeybd_small

If you don't specify "vkeybd_pack_name" it will use the "default" one, which is larger.
If you don't specify "vkeybdpath" it will look into your Extras path if you've defined one, or directly in your ScummVM folder (maybe some subfolders too that are natively in ScummVM's searchpath --I'm not sure).

[yontala]

Hi Praetorian and thanks for your answer.

What do you mean when you say I have to build a ScummVm version ?

I understand how to modify the scummvm.ini but I don’t know how to build a Scummvm version.

Where should I run the configure command you tell me about ? Do you have a tutorial ?

[Praetorian]

Hi Praetorian and thanks for your answer.

What do you mean when you say I have to build a ScummVm version ?

I understand how to modify the scummvm.ini but I don’t know how to build a Scummvm version.

Where should I run the configure command you tell me about ? Do you have a tutorial ?

I understand that this might not be end-user friendly. What it means is you have to download the ScummVM source code file from our github repository and compile it with enabled support for virtual keyboard (which is set in the first step, the "configure" step, before the actual compilation).

The quickest way to download the source code would be to use the option from the github page linked above to "Download ZIP"

DownloadZipCode.png (138.17 KiB) Viewed 2765 times

There are instructions one could follow here:
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?titl ... /MinGW-w64
or using Visual Studio here:
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Comp ... ual_Studio

I'm typically using the first method (with Msys2/MinGW-w64) which is relevantly easy to setup. But both processes require some familiarity with these environment -- although the learning curve is quite easy in my opinion.

Note, though, that if you're on Windows, the Operating System's accessibility option for on-screen keyboard may also suit your needs --maybe in a more efficient and user friendly way than our virtual keyboard. In which case, you can use the official ScummVM 2.5.1 version with it, with no need to compile your own ScummVM build.

[yontala]

Thanks again for all your tutorials and explanation

I follow your instructions and I recompile a scummvm.exe file but when i tried to start it i get several error messages about missing dll:
liba52-0.dll
libcurl-4.dll
libfaad-2.dll
libFLAC.dll

It purpose me to try to reinstall the program.

What did I do wrong ?

[Praetorian]

Thanks again for all your tutorials and explanation

I follow your instructions and I recompile a scummvm.exe file but when i tried to start it i get several error messages about missing dll:
liba52-0.dll
libcurl-4.dll
libfaad-2.dll
libFLAC.dll

It purpose me to try to reinstall the program.

What did I do wrong ?

If you compiled scummvm with the msys2/mingw-w64 environment, then just launch scummvm from within the same environment (ie. the MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit shell). Just go to the directory where you put the source and compiled it, and thus the scummvm.exe exists, and run:

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./scummvm

This environment already has these dll files in paths where the shell session knows about and tell you they are missing.
If you run scummvm.exe from the Windows explorer, it will notify you about the missing dlls.
You can still search within the msys2 directories find these dlls (the appropriate versions, 32bit or 64bit, based on what you used to compile scummvm) and copy them directly in the folder where your scummvm.exe is.

[yontala]

Ok add this line to yours :

./configure --disable-debug --enable-release --enable-vkeybd
make win32dist-mingw WIN32PATH=c/msys64/mingw64/bin -j$(nproc)

And it finally works like a charm

Thanks for everything