gaurav's rants » keyboard

Custom Keyboard Font on OS 3.0

gaurav — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:34:39 +0000

so i just got a message on twitter from @mybelovedpiglet telling me about the font PhoneKeyCaps.ttf which is used to render the text on the keyboard. i wasn’t aware of this until now. this immensely simplifies customizing the keyboard font for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. earlier it used to involve creating and modifying loads of images used for the keyboard. and i also got numerous emails about my keyboard themes not working right with WinterBoard on 3.0. i think these problems can be fixed now.

this new discovery gives me reason to prepare and release the next version of FontSwap which will happen later this week.

Screenshot:

please ignore the backspace button for now. i just had to try a quick port and test, so did not really care about it. custom font authors will need to take care of this as this font has different glyphs from the usual system font so just a font rename is not going to work.

cheers.

Keyboards now on Cydia

gaurav — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:54:35 +0000

The NeoTech keyboards are now available on Cydia through the BigBoss repository..
this includes Neo Keys, Neo Keys Dark and Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace].
BigBoss repo is in community sources so you don’t need to make any changes to Cydia, just let it refresh once.
I thought this will make the themes available to a larger user base and at the same time allow me to provide updates and bugfixes in a more simple and efficient manner.
If you have the keyboards installed you should install again from Cydia.
If you’re using Neo Keys, the one with the default colors, you *must* install from Cydia as a major bug has been fixed. Thanks to Allen from Planet-iPhones for pointing it out.

NOTE: these themes only affect the keyboard on your iPhone.. to have system-wide customization.. you can download the various custom fonts that I’ve posted here..

All Keyboards [bug fix]

gaurav — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:44:55 +0000

this is a bug fix for all the keyboards i’ve released till now..

Neo Keys
Neo Keys Dark
Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace]

Download: Neo Keys (1663)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

Download: Neo Keys Dark (2000)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

Download: Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace] (1409)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

the Info.plist file in the theme folders caused conflicts with other theme elements from other themes. so i’ve removed them.. and there were errors in some readme.txt files which have been fixed as well..

Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace] for iPhone 2.0.x [WinterBoard]

gaurav — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:03:07 +0000

the space bar text was not visible in the Neo Keys Dark theme so i made a few modifications.. this was requested quite a bit over at MacThemes forums..
I’m calling this one Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace].. can’t think of anything better due to sleep deprivation.. rotfl..

Download: Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace] (1409)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

couldn’t take screenshot of pressed button but it’s brighter..

Download: Neo Keys Dark [WhiteSpace] (1409)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

btw.. if you like this keyboard then you’d love to have the MonoChrome theme on your iPhone.. it looks awesome on the iPhone.. that’s the one i have on, it’s got minor glitches here and there but i’m sure they’ll be fixed with time..
MonoChrome is created by Vibestar, ported to 2.0 by DrTaru..
get it here http://macthemes2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16788048

Neo Keys Dark for iPhone 2.0.x [WinterBoard]

gaurav — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:57:22 +0000

so i’ve finally completed this theme to my satisfaction.. looks really fantastic on my iPhone..
you *must* get this keyboard if you have NeoTech as the system font and dark replacements for other artwork.. it goes very nice without the dark artwork as well..

there were some problems initially with images that were exported from Photoshop [i used Photoshop for the batch automation feature], they were all messed up.. then i decided to do the alterations and export manually from Fireworks and that did the trick.. the images came out perfect..

Download: Neo Keys Dark (2000)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

Screenshots:

it’s a hell lot harder to theme a dark keyboard or one that has different colors from the default keyboard as there are many more images that need to be modified.. in case of Neo Keys i had to only modify the images that had text.. this time almost all the images related to the keyboard needed modification.. which was quite time consuming.. and i’m glad i made Neo Keys in a very systematic way using layers in the PNGs.. it helped me loads to get this darker theme done quick and easy..

if you discover a bug please post a comment, a screenshot of the bug would help me fix it quicker..

cheers..

Download: Neo Keys Dark (2000)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

PS: i had to modify the screenshots in fireworks.. i increased the brightness a bit.. the screenshots and the artwork files look very very dark to the point of making it impossible to distinguish between colors when viewed on the pc. these screenshots is still a bit darker than how it looks on my iPhone.. i have brightness set to around 0.7 on my iPhone.. if you have it lower/higher. this theme will look much darker/lighter respectively..

Neo Keys for iPhone 2.0.x [WinterBoard]

gaurav — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:11:16 +0000

here.. it.. is.. i’ve finally managed to finish this mod.. all the keyboard images have been modified and i really like the way it has come out..
this mod is absolutely necessary if you have NeoTech as the system font on your iPhone.. the default keyboard just looks wrong.. this one.. just right..

i’ve included all the keyboard types. standard, azerty, qwertz and qzerty..

the phone number pads will be released later on as an update.. i don’t have a timeline for that as yet..
i do plan to make NeoTech mods for all the artwork on the iPhone including the dialer and other stuff.. this will happen gradually as WinterBoard does not currently support *all* the artwork.. i’m sure that Saurik is working hard to change that though..

i would like to thank Saurik for making WinterBoard happen. otherwise i would never have done this mod. somehow extracting, editing and packaging .artwork files seems like a lot of work to me..

all in all.. i hope you enjoy using this theme just as much as i did making it..
bugs if any should be reported in the comments..

Download: Neo Keys (1663)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

Screenshots:

Download: Neo Keys (1663)
[refer to readme.txt in the archive for installation steps]

NeoTech Keyboard Theme for WinterBoard

gaurav — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:45:58 +0000

wow.. i’m starting to think that i’m obsessed with having the NeoTech font all over my iPhone…. it’s almost 5 in the morning and i’ve been working on this mod non-stop for the past 10 hours.. i dint know it was this hard to make this particular mod.. it still isn’t finished.. only a third of the images have been modified.. still a long way to go..

anyways..
here are some screenshots for you to feast on while i get the theme ready for release..

i plan to release this as a WinterBoard theme so that you won’t have to do any file swapping.. theme will be relesed as soon as it is ready..

Progress:
80/80 kbd files
0/32 numpad files

PS: i’ll post the icons n other stuff requested in the other threads and the shoutbox after i’ve had some sleep..