[Tfug] Virtual Keyboard

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, Joe,

--- jblais <joe.blais at pti-instruments.com> wrote:

> > What sort of interfaces are you interested in?
> > You make "instruments", right?
> 
> We're interested in anything "slick" -- well...
> durable, cheap, simple for me to program for....

But, users are interacting with an *instrument*,
not a CAD system, etc.  (e.g., an occular mouse
would be severley underutilized)?
 
> Our latest machine has a touchscreen (Fedora 5),

That makes sense.  Kiosk style (I should show
you what I'm doing for WC).  Do you have "issues"
with cross-contamination?  I.e., making sure that
you can "wipe clean" the display (which is also the
"keyboard") at the end of a run to prevent carryover
to the *next* run?

> and the user does everything through there.
> I fixed up an alphanumeric and a numeric keypad
> for touch use.

Out of curiosity, telephone layout or calculator?

> Basically, our instrument users need to pick from
> options, and type in some words for naming things
> they want to save.  The rest is control buttons,
> text displays, some graphics (unless I can avoid
> it).

Presumably, the "names" they assigned are presented
in the future to let them re-call that Rx?

> > I think text entry is always a challenge with
> anything
> > other than a conventional keyboard.  *But*, often
> > you can rethink your interface and come up with
> > alternatives that *aren't* textual.
> >
> > Or, that aren't as *verbose*.
> 
> All of the "actions" and stuff that a user wants the
> machine to perform, aren't hard coded.  Everything
> is in 2 layers of scripts, so the GUI looks
> through the user's available scripts, displays the
> names of the scripts (and comments) and then
> presents them in a generic pick screen.

OK.

> Then each script action can require different
> parameters, so the user is presented with
> different buttons that he/she can use to set those
> parameters.  The user then goes to the Run screen,
> and hits go.

Could the "recipe creation" task be off-loaded
(e.g., to a PC/workstation)?  I.e., just turn
the instrument into something that *runs* Rx's
instead of *creating* them?

> Our machines synthesize peptides out of the 20 (or
> so) basic amino acids.
> We've even configured some machines to synthesize
> DNA out of the 4 sugars(?)
> (I'm not a chemist, Arginine, Thimine, Sistine, ).

Mustard, Relish, Ketchup, Onions

--don


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