How to customize the keyboard on android for games. We turn the tablet into a full-fledged workplace. Setting up your phone as a controller
This is another keyboard for modern mobile devices based on the Android OS. It was created specifically for gamers.
Characteristic
Currently, there are many keyboards for modern mobile devices based on the Android OS. How does this instance compare favorably with all the others? First of all, the fact that this keyboard was created specifically for the players. In this regard, you should think about installing it if you like to play games on your smartphone or tablet.
It is noteworthy that this keyboard was created, first of all, for old games that ran on the basis of MS DOS. However, it can come in handy in many other cases as well. The keyboard will allow you to enjoy old cult games that you no longer hoped to play. However, unfortunately, today it is not compatible with all devices.
Peculiarities
This keyboard is notable for the following aspects:
- Full multitouch support.
- Lots of buttons.
- Four- and eight-way joystick.
- Quickly switch to the built-in keyboard.
- Saved profiles for settings.
- Unique ability to control the joystick using the accelerometer.
- The ability to reassign physical keys.
- Full integration with the popular gaming service that recognizes the given keyboard as a physical one.
GameKeyboard was created for DOS emulators, but thanks to stable work the program has found its application to simplify interaction with mobile apps on the Android platform. Use the 8-way joystick and full keyboard.
Characteristic
Are the built-in controls in the game poor? Make management your own rules. With GameKeyboard, you can use your gamepad and keyboard in most Android apps. Here are just a few functionality utilities:
- Multitouch
- Four- / eight-way joystick;
- Two to eight gamepad buttons;
- Built-in keyboard.
Peculiarities
Double tap on the menu button "pulls out" the keyboard with fast switching on KVERT, detailed settings and the ability to save settings profiles. Supported from 2 to 8 keys, the functionality of which can be changed by "hanging" on them Ctrl, Alt, F1-F12 and any other keys. Profile settings can be saved in the same way.
Particular attention should be paid to the joystick. The developers have provided control of the joystick using an accelerometer. Just imagine that now you can play Mario or Tetris by controlling the tilt of the device. On the one hand, this is unusual, but very convenient and interesting.
In conclusion, we note that through the program in individual applications, you can use physical buttons, having previously configured their functionality.
Tired of putting up with awkward controls in mobile games? Then this dedicated gaming keyboard is just for you!
Characteristic
Any gamer knows perfectly well that absolutely any, even the highest quality and interesting game can be spoiled by inconvenient controls. It does not allow you to fully enjoy the gameplay. Fortunately today this problem pretty easy to solve. This can be done using a dedicated gaming keyboard. This utility will help you to literally optimize the control of any game for yourself. Forget about mistakes and shortcomings of developers forever!
Using this program is incredibly simple and convenient. The game keyboard is called when the game is already running and minimized. This is done by long pressing the screen of the mobile device. If some other functions are assigned for a long tap, then you should try to reassign them or just call the keyboard first and only then start the game.
Peculiarities
- The broadest functionality.
- Detailed settings for buttons and joystick with the ability to save a profile.
- Multitouch.
- Quickly switch to the built-in keyboard.
- The ability to reassign physical keys.
- Joystick control by means of an accelerometer.
- Integration with OnLive (this is a well-known gaming service that will recognize this gaming keyboard as regular keyboard personal computer).
From our site you can download Game Keyboard for Android for free without registration and SMS.
ASUS Transformer and Microsoft Surface- great devices that combine a tablet and a full-fledged laptop. On the road, such a thing does not take up much space and is great for both work and leisure. He took a thin keyboard out of his bag, and you have a laptop in your hands, put it back - a tablet. Comfortable. But is it possible to do something similar from a regular Android tablet? Easily!
What for?
Even the cheapest modern tablets have extremely powerful hardware that is powerful enough to rival netbooks. However, the tablet has a completely different purpose, which poses an obvious problem for us: what to take with us on the road? An easy-to-read tablet or netbook for reading books, surfing the web and playing games - a great tool for communication and work? To carry both of them with us is not the most fun activity, but after all, we can take a different path.
To begin with, almost any tablet under Android supports the connection of a keyboard and mouse - in fact, this turns it into a kind of all-in-one computer that you can lean against something, place the keyboard and mouse in front of you and work in peace. On the road, it is not very convenient, and even too much even for a geek, so smart Chinese have come up with special covers with a built-in keyboard, which, with a slight movement of the hand, turn the tablet into an interesting device, similar to a netbook. It is definitely worth buying such a cover, especially since it will cost no more than 20 American rubles, and the keyboard is really good there.
The second is the OS. It would seem that Android is not at all designed to work and you cannot do without a full-fledged netbook / laptop. But everything is in order here, browsers easily serve several tabs, there are many keyboard shortcuts, a full set of UNIX utilities, a bunch of administration software, compilers, utilities, web servers and everything you can think of, except for quite professional software like Photoshop or ProTools. But I doubt that someone will be engaged in graphic art or mixing a composition, sitting in the passenger seat of a car moving along the "magnificent" Russian roads.
In other words, the tablet has everything you need to use it as a workstation, but about how to use this "all" on full reel, we will talk further.
Base minimum
So we have an Android 4 tablet, keyboard, mouse (optional), and the desire to turn it all into a workhorse.
I'll make a reservation right away that a USB keyboard and a mouse can only be plugged into a tablet with support for USB host (OTG) mode, so if this option is not available in the tablet, you will have to use more expensive Bluetooth accessories, and if there is no Bluetooth support, then nothing you can do it - such a tablet is not good.
If USB host mode is supported, the keyboard or mouse should be connected using the OTG cable, which usually comes with the tablet and is a miniUSB male cable on one side and a full USB female on the other (if the tablet has full-size USB ports, you can weave directly into them). If it was not included in the kit, the OTG cable can be bought at any mobile technology store or ordered in China for one dollar (it is no worse). I want to warn you that usually not all ports support host mode, so you need to stick it into the correct one (usually it is signed by Host or OTG).
When everything is in our hands, we hook the mouse and keyboard to the tablet - and voila, everything works. You could say that this will be enough, but Android can offer much more advanced keyboard controls. One of the main ones is a fairly developed and convenient system of keyboard shortcuts, which has existed since the first versions of the OS. So, to navigate the desktop and various menus, you can use the "arrows", and, the key replaces the "Back" button, and
Android keyboard shortcuts
A special place among them is the combination Keyboard shortcuts are also available in applications, but only a small minority of developers implement such controls. Even among browsers where this functionality is essential, I could find only two that can be fully controlled using the keyboard. This is the standard browser and Google Chrome, which support the following set of combinations: Browser combinations Unfortunately, in Android there is no way to change key combinations or add your own, but the available ones will be quite enough to work with the tablet without any mouse, only occasionally touching the screen - to select some hard-to-reach interface element. Since we are talking about the browser, then we need to take care of the Internet connection. Not all tablets are equipped with a 3G module, so you will most likely have to get the Internet in other ways. Two standard solutions are a 3G modem or the Internet from a phone. The first option is more preferable, however, on tablets with one host port (like mine), it will not allow you to plug in the keyboard as well. The option with the distribution of the Internet from the phone via Wi-Fi is very convenient, but it drains the battery of a smart at an incredible speed, so it is much better to use more economical Bluetooth for this purpose. The blue tooth situation in Android is rather strange, and its support varies greatly from version to version. Nevertheless, the distribution of the Internet via Bluetooth (PAN profile) has been supported for a long time, and, most likely, it is already in the smartphone (you should look somewhere in the area "Wireless networks -> Advanced -> Modem mode"). To connect to such a "translator", Google recommends that you select the desired Bluetooth device in the list in the "Profiles" section and check the "Use to access the Internet" item. But in practice, such a point often simply does not exist, therefore, to connect, you will have to use an independent implementation of the PAN profile, for example, "Bluetooth PAN" from the market. It requires root, but it's easy to use: launched it, clicked on the huge round button in the middle of the screen. In order to have access to all the necessary data on the road, you can pre-upload it to a USB flash drive or use cloud drives like Dropbox or Google Drive. Both approaches are inconvenient because they do not allow automatic synchronization. But the Dropsync application can do it and does it very well. In fact, Dropsync performs the same task as the desktop version of Dropbox: it allows you to store files on a flash drive, periodically synchronizing them with the cloud storage. Importantly, the directories for synchronization can be selected individually, sending and receiving from the cloud only what is really needed on the tablet, for example, books, music, source texts. Using Dropsync is quite simple, you just need to select a directory for synchronization, a directory in Dropbox and choose the synchronization method: one way or both. After that, the software will hang in the background and will periodically perform synchronization. I immediately recommend buying the Pro version, it implements support for the Linux inotify technology for instant synchronization immediately after changing files, and also removes the 5 MB file size limit and one synchronized directory. You can work effectively in the terminal emulator without a hard keyboard. To do this, you just need to install the Hacker's keyboard, which has keys Let's talk about more advanced tablet use. For a geek, and even more so for a person administering remote servers, standard functionality and common applications will, of course, not be enough to feel full. Therefore, we need to acquire a gentleman's set of Linux, namely a terminal emulator, a set of command line utilities, as well as various SSH clients and rsyncs. There is plenty of this for Android, thanks to the Linux kernel. First of all, we will get root on the tablet. We have already described how to do this, especially since each device has its own methodology, which includes many nuances. So Google is there to help. Next, we install the Android Terminal Emulator from the market, this is a standard VT102 emulator with support for everything you need. It supports all control sequences, which means all key combinations that you will type on the keyboard. A standard Android installation includes a limited set of command line utilities (which doesn't even have a cp command), but it's easy to expand to a complete one by simply installing BusyBox using one of the many installers available on the market. After that, you can get a normal bash instead of the wretched sh included in the kit. To do this, install the GNU bash 4.2 Installer, run it and press the "Install" button. To let the terminal emulator know that we want to immediately get into bash at startup, go to the terminal settings and specify the path “/ system / xbin / bash -” in the “Command shell” option. From now on, we have a full command line, but no SSH client and a good text editor. You can solve this problem by installing the good old ConnectBot and Vim Touch. As independent tools, they do their job great, but using them productively with a keyboard and, if necessary, editing various files directly from the terminal will not work. Therefore, we will install the native versions of these programs. Console Vim for Android can be obtained from this link. It should be unpacked, transferred to the tablet's memory card, and then put in the / system / xbin directory. Here's how to do it right in Android: Installing console vim $ su # cp / sdcard / path-to-binary / system / xbin # chmod + x / system / bin / vim The SSH client, in turn, is in the SSHDroid app. All you need to do is install SSHDroid and copy the SSH client to the / system / xbin directory: Installing ssh $ su # cp /data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/dropbear/ssh / system / xbin # chmod + x / system / xbin / ssh You can go even further and install an entire Linux distribution that has everything you want. It is especially convenient for this to use Arch Linux Installer, which installs a minimal Arch Linux into an image without any unnecessary Xs and other junk. And thanks to the rolling-releases' juniper philosophy, you will always have the freshest software, without the need to install new version distribution kit. The installer itself is incredibly simple, so I won't describe its use. It is clear that when working remotely, we will most likely have to go online through a VPN, since open Wi-Fi in various cafeterias and hotels is not credible simply by definition. The new Android now has VPN support right out of the box, so setting up a proxy won't cause any problems. Just go to the settings " Wireless networks-> More ... ", click VPN, Android prompts you to set a PIN or password, this will have to be done, otherwise we will not be allowed further. Then click "Add VPN Profile" and specify the VPN type (standard PPTP, L2TP / IPSec, IPSec Xauth or IPSec Hybrid), drive in the profile name, server address and keys, if necessary (for PPTP, of course, not needed). We save, tap on the profile name, drive in the username and password, and all traffic begins to go through the tunnel. If you are going to do some coding on the way, then in Google play there are tons of tools for that. To create small auxiliary utilities and scripts, you can use the SL4A environment (code.google.com/p/android-scripting), which allows you to execute scripts written in sh, Python, Ruby, Perl, Lua, and other languages. The environment is equipped with an editor and a simple API that allows you to access the basic functions of the tablet. For more serious development, you can use the QPython environment, which, in addition to API SL4A, offers access to native Android API as well as the Kivy cross-platform graphics widget library. Applications created using QPython will hardly differ visually from native ones. The Ruboto IRB environment generally offers full access to the Android Java API, but for the Ruby language. I would especially like to note the AIDE environment, which allows you to create full-fledged Java applications for Android in Android itself. The environment is very developed, with a complete set of all necessary functions including syntax highlighting, autocompletion, online hints, one-click compilation and launch. AIDE is fully compatible with Android SDK projects, so it really can be used for serious development. Particularly hardcore comrades can install the GNU GCC C / C ++ Compiler, the very same GCC and a set of binutils that allow you to build software in the console. Carrying a tablet with you, and even having a keyboard and mouse connected to it, you probably want to hook it up to the HDMI port of your TV or AV receiver. In principle, everything here is simple and boringly convenient: I plugged in the cable and got a picture on big screen... But there are several interesting moments which I would like to tell you about. Screen blanking. One of the most frustrating aspects of Android's HDMI support is the need to keep the screen on. As soon as you press the tablet shutdown button, HDMI is de-energized and “ big picture"Disappears. You cannot disable this behavior by means of Android itself, but you can use the excellent Screen Standby program, which forcibly turns off the backlight of the screen, so you can safely watch videos, play games or surf the Internet without being distracted by a copy of the image on the tablet. Screen Standby has many extremely useful settings, for example, turns off the backlight by itself when you plug in the HDMI cable. To do this, it is enough to enable the "Auto HDMI / MHL Detection" option in the "HDMI Detection" section (there are also settings for switching off when starting the application or placing it in the dock). Another very interesting feature is putting the tablet into touchpad mode, when the cursor appears on the monitor screen and the tablet screen turns into a large touchpad. It is enabled in the menu "Settings -> Touchpad setting -> Use touchpad function", but this function did not work for me, which is predictable, given the limited support for models. Joystick and control panel. A tablet connected to a monitor or TV can be controlled not only with a keyboard and mouse, but also using a smartphone on the same android. You do not need to log into the tablet via SSH or other means. You can use the virtual joystick BT Controller from the market. This program allows you to turn your smartphone into a virtual blue-toothed joystick, control panel or even a keyboard - there is already someone who needs what. BT Controller should be installed on both devices that are already connected via Bluetooth. Then, on one of the devices, press the "Connect" button, after which a message will appear on the screen asking you to select the device function: Controller or Host. Click on the Host tablet, after which an information plate appears in the upper right corner, symbolizing the successful connection and operability of the components. Tap on the "KB Enabled" line on the plate will transfer us to the input methods settings menu, in which you should select BTController, and tap on "KB Active" will allow you to switch to BT Controller instead of the standard keyboard. When all these operations are completed, you can use the joystick that appears on the screen. V free version applications only one version of the interface is the SNES joystick, with which it is quite convenient to play games, but for other purposes it is not suitable. Paid version BT Controller lets you choose between over thirty different joysticks, remotes and keyboards, and more importantly, create a new one yourself using a dedicated editor. An Android tablet can really be turned into a full-fledged desktop that is a pleasure to use. Of course, it will not replace a real laptop on Linux, but you will not notice any special problems in use either. Droid4X emulator Is an excellent solution for creating a game console based on OC Android on your computer. The emulator allows you to customize the control of your mouse, keyboard and even your mobile device. Let's take a look at examples of how you can customize game controls in Droid4X. Let's consider setting up keyboard and mouse controls using the example of a game. World of Tanks Blitz... Find the button with the keyboard icon in the emulator control panel click it to open the control settings. Let's take a closer look at the control panel: Left-click on the movement control button, and without releasing it, drag it to the lower left corner (usually the movement control is located exactly there) exactly to the place where it is. Move the mouse cursor (number 3 in the screenshot above) exactly to the center in the same way. During the game, the view with the mouse is turned on by pressing right click mice. Move the shot control button (number 4) to the corresponding button. In the end, you should end up with the following: If during the settings the buttons lie a little unevenly, everything can be reset using the Clear button. When finished, click the Save button to save the settings. In many games, it is not enough to simply set up controls, vision, and the firing button. Other buttons are often used, for example, in WoT Blitz, this is the use of consumables or the inclusion of a sniper mode. All these buttons can also be transferred to the keyboard. Go to the keyboard settings in the emulator, and on the area where you want to add the button, just click left button mouse, you will have a circle where you need to enter a number from the keyboard, which will be responsible for clicking on this area. Click the Save button to save all settings. You can also watch a video about setting up the keyboard and mouse in the Droid4x emulator: Go to www.droid4x.com from your phone and find the Download Controller button select the required operating system, download the installer and install on your phone Dorid4X. Further, to pair the computer and the phone, you need to know the IP address of the computer, for this click on the Joystick button in the upper left corner of the emulator control panel. In the window that appears, from the bottom, there will be the IP address we need. Next, launch the Droid4X application on your mobile device and enter the IP that you see on your computer screen and click the Connect button. To pair the phone and computer, it is necessary that they be connected to the same Wi-Fi point, otherwise they will not "see" each other! If the connection is successful, an icon will appear in the notification area, informing about the successful connection of the phone. This information will also appear in the emulator itself. Droid4X. Now you can easily play games that require the phone's built-in gyroscope to control.
Virtual keyboard for Android tablets
Advanced option
HDMI
conclusions
Configuring additional control buttons
Setting up your phone as a controller
Important!
