I’ve just ordered an XKeys mini keyboard for £90. This includes shipping and extra quad/double keys. These units are quite popular for DTP design and gamers who need quick hotkeys, but obviously come in handy for a radio studio
The keycaps can be arranged to suit, with your own printed labels inserted inside - Other keyboard sizes are available and they’re easily programmed with your required keystrokes. The PS/2 version piggy-backs onto your existing QWERTY keyboard, so you can assign some really awkward CTRL/SHFT keys to mAirList and not worry about losing vital buttons on the normal keyboard.
Torben, there’s also an ActiveX file for developers, and the keyboards can “talk” directly to your program via the OCX file.
There are UK dealers, but without contacting them all - I can’t give you any prices. I could make the thing for under £20 using a PIC chip, but the problem is the look of the button box May have to have a delv into the CPC catalogue and cost-up a home-made keyboard box.
Just found this on eBay, a USB keypad that has 4 removable covers for the top buttons, but all can be re-programmed. So, assign some CTRL-x keys and use it alongside your QWERTY.
Just an update - I picked up a Tipro KM064A mini keyboard on eBay for a couple of quid, cost a total of £10.50p including OTT postage (but considering the keyboard is worth about 80, who’s complaining?!)…
Despite their price, I do like the Tipro range - All the buttons are fixed, but the single, double and quad key-caps can fit anywhere on the keyboard - Allowing you to totally customize the layout. Combined with the free programming software+label maker - I’d say it’s money well spent. They are also fairly robust, as PSquared use them for their playout system, Myriad.
It’s the PS/2 version, which allows my normal QWERTY mini to piggy-back onto it.
A very interesting discussion, with many devices I hadn’t heard of before. The XKeys devices, esp. the larger ones like the 84-key model, are especially interesting.
However, if we had the money, I still think I would opt for an Ergodex (http://www.ergodex.com/mainpage.htm), with the extra 25 keys to take it up to 50.
The Ergodex’s unique advantage is that you can literally rearrange the keys into any layout you like, such as exactly mirroring your mAirList screen layout.
Because you can also put a piece of paper under the glass tray, this can be a suitably adapted screen capture of your mAirList layout, to make it even easier for presenters to find the ‘right’ button!
Oh well, maybe Santa will be good to Leith FM >sigh<…
If you’ve ever wanted a custom-style keyboard and didn’t want to spend £90 on a Tipro KM064, or about £200 on a full QWERTY - keep an eye on eBay as I managed to get another identical (to the one above) Tipro 64-key unit for under £10. Carry-out searches for epos keyboard, pos keyboard, and programmable keyboard as many “point of sale” keyboards are suitable, especially the Tipro as they are programmable to any keystroke via free software from their site.
The bargains are few and far between, but if you really want to save some money - Keep a regular eye on eBay. I dare say, one day, Torben will even find a use for the MagStrip reader on a old cash-keyboard
There are some fairly priced USB numeric keypads available, the one I picked up from Cherry Keyboards was programmable, but only allowed the top 4 buttons to be re-labelled. They are out they, as there’s a picture of one in the German Hardware section of this forum.
I’m also messing around with LCD Manager but being painfully ill equiped to understand scripting, I’m pretty much at a loss as to how to make the Logitech G15 keyboard LCD screen reflect keyboard actions or feedback from within mAirList to confirm actions.
I doubt that you can use it right away from a script. It needs a special SDK, which seems to be available for Delphi, but I would need to build it into mAirList.
Like everything, if you poke around you’ll find a good price, and in New Zealand, my price ended up, off the shelf with a little negotiated cash discount being quite reasonable.
I think such keyboards lend themselves quite nicely to automation and with the LCD readout would be very practical.
Thats just another way of encouraging you, Torben, to look at developing the necessary tools/interfaces to make it usable as an automation add-on for mAirList, although I can’t help feeling a little guilty in making that suggestion, given that you seem to devote an enormous amount of time and effort in responding to our many requests for ultimate perfection.
You don’t get a much broader hint than that, I guess
I dare say, one day, Torben will even find a use for the MagStrip reader on a old cash-keyboard :)
How about loading cartwall presets?
Or maybe change the skin/layout and preferences?
I have a keyboard that allows you too move the keys, change the sizes of them and stuff but you cant program the keys. So I have made a small bit of software that re-maps the keys. I then plug both the custom keyboard and normal one in at the same time, when I press Ctrl + K on the normal one it turns the software on and off. So I can use a normal keyboard to build the playlist. It works great.
It also has a card reader and key port. I have made it read the key port and it runs a script when the key position changes. Which basically loads different cart setups and playlist templates! The card reader i havent touched yet - but If I could change preferences and skins/layout when I swiped the card - that would sort out a use for it
Just an idea that might be usefull. Would anyone else find it usefull?
(BTW - If anyone wants a keyboard like I have, PM me and I’ll see what I can do. I should be able to get them at a good price.)
Well, the trusty Yellowtec VIP1 voice processor has a mag-stip reader for presenter mic settings - Why not a keyboard ?! PSquared’s Myriad now offers a USB dongle for users so that “User Carts” and personal logins are carried from studio to studio.
Making the skin, layout and preferences customizable during runtime is somewhat tricky. Of course it can be done, but it’s much easier to load a fixed configuration at startup. Fortunately, a radio automation isn’t that piece of software where you change your settings regularly. Once it is set up, there is little need to reconfigure it. The current way of reading the configuration makes things a little harder for the user, but it’s much easier for me, and results in a more stable product.
Charlie, don’t you think selecting a cart preset from the drop-down list is a little more convenient?
