Hi there,
i have issues setting up usb numeric keypads with an xt 1143 (Firmware 7.1.65). The number keys on a full keyboard work, but the keys on the numpad have no effect. Any help/solution is highly appreciated. I Have a large number of players to set up (50+) and i already have these Hama Keypads, https://www.hama.com/00053224/hama-keypad_eng
would love to be able to use them. Thanks so much!
Is there a "Num Lock" key on the keypad? If it is like most, you have to press the Num Lock once (usually there is a corresponding LED to note that is is on) for it to work as a Numeric Keypad.
The BrightSign will not do this automatically unfortunately (something people have been asking for), so anytime the player is powered up again, the Num Lock will need to be pressed again.
Hope this helps.
John
Looking closer at the Keypad link you provided, it doesn't look like there is a Num Lock button on that keypad unfortunately (the assume you can use the Num Lock on the other regular keyboard.
I don't think those are going to work for you.
You are in Germany?
Maybe these from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.de/Jelly-Comb-Nummernblock-Ziffernblock-Tastatur-Pad/dp/B01FXLB9FA/
You would still need to toggle the Num Lock, but these do have that button on them.
Try the arrow keys, Home, PgDn, etc inputs.
https://brightsign.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/218066787-How-do-I-use-non-printing-keyboard-keys-with-a-BrightSign-
Brandon - I think he is trying to use the numeric keypad to trigger "Keyboard Input" events in BrightAuthor. The Numeric Keypad is plugged into the BrightSign Players USB port.
I do this all the time, but this issue is that the BrightSign players do not turn on the Num Lock for the numeric keypads automatically like computers do. So you have to use numeric keypads that actually have a Num Lock key, and press this key every time the player is powered on to put the keypad in Num Lock mode before it will work.
This is the only way to get the numeric keypads to work, so you can use "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" "0" as keyboard input triggers.
NumPads should send arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down when NumLock is not on. That's how we lived in the 83/84-key days before there were dedicated keys.
The article gives the special codes for those keys.
5 on the NumPad is iffy as it doesn't have a default function in arrow mode.
Thanks Guys,
Brandon, i understand what you say but i need all keys on Numpad working. What i need to get is Key 1 on um Numpad starting video 1, Key 2 Starting video 2 and so on. I have up to 10 videos per screen. and yes, when i plug in a full size usb keyboard, Numeric keypad works when i press shift. Its a for trade show with over 50 screens and we wanna keep it slim an clean, thats why we want to use small USB Keypads for user interaction, wireless remotes will be gone after the first day. Is there any way via a script?
Brandon:
I think I went through this before with Lyndon years ago.
The non-printing codes don't work with the Numeric Keypads, only on Full Size Keyboards. The USB Usage ID Codes are different for Keypads then they are for Keyboards, and the non-printing codes that BrightSign set up for only the Keyboard codes.
USB HID Usage Tables - See Chapter 10 starting at page 53, Keypad codes start on page 55 towards the bottom:
https://www.usb.org/document-library/hid-usage-tables-112 - Download pdf file
For example, I just tried again:
I used <ed> in place of 1, <da> in place of 2, <pd> in place of 3, etc.
None of those worked on any of the Numeric Keypads that I have, but did work for my full size Keyboards.
Of course this doesn't help Ewe any.
His solution at this point is going to be to see if he can hopefully return the keypads he has, and get different keypads that have a Num Lock button on them. I don't know of any other working solution at this time.
Thanks JohnLBV!
thats bad news for me.. i used mac minis running Qlab the last couple of years for this job with great succes (still have they keypads from that), just switched to brightsign players (for 4k reasons). That means i have to look into a more expensive solution. We have over 50 players on this job, they should be able to run without any technician on site. No way somebody pressing/holding a key while startup every morning the 50+ players start. I can`t believe though that Brightsign can`t come up with a script to the player setup or a firmware update that allows standard num pads to be used. It doesnt seem an impossible thing to me.
Cleanest solution would be to use an X-Keys or Genovation type device where you can program the hardware's keys to send specific codes.
If it works with Num lock on you might get away with having a small X-Keys turn on Num Lock shortly after boot.
Yes if you only have a few players the Genovation products are great.
But when you are trying to do 50 players and you are on a very tight budget, $600 for 50 numeric keypads is a much better deal than $5,000 for Genovation keypads..
This was brought to BrightSign's attention as far back as at least 2010, but in those 8 years the Dev team has not been able to find ANY solution to the player turning on Num Lock automatically?
This continues to be disappointing.
i totally agree. that is dissapointing considering that it probably isnt that complicated to do. btw the Genovation keypads are starting at 235 Euros on Amazon Germany, thats over 300 Dollars a unit. That for something a 10 bucks unit would do just as good. I might even have to look for an alternative to the Brightsign Players. When i read that usb keyboards can be used to control brightsign units i assumed all parts of a usb keyboard. Like i say, over 50 players, no way pressing/holding keys while units start up.. thats not an solution.
There is a possibility, I am trying to see if I can figure out.
I see where they added the nonprinting characters in the autorun.brs - so adding additional ones for the Numeric Keypad should not be an issue. But the numbers they have do not match up with any known keyboard number tables.
If I can figure out a way to write a BrightSign Script to get the values for each of those buttons on the keypad, then I may have a solution for you. But unfortunately I have not really done that much with scripting yet
I will certainly try today, as it will help you and others.
So, I got further, but something is different than what is expected.
In the BrightSign player log, when I press keys on the Numeric Keypad (with the Num Lock Off) I get this:
So I tried adding Non Printable Keyboard Codes to the autorun.bat for <k1>, <k2>, <k3>, etc. but they have hard coded BrightAuthor to only except pre-defined codes.
OK, so for your application you wouldn't need the F keys, so I changed the entries for the F-keys to the Numeric Keypad codes F10 for 0, F1 for 1, F2 for 2, etc.:
(I removed the other keyboard codes for brevity)
Unfortunately this did not work either.
So pressing keypad key 1 still says no mapping for key 79, even though I changed the code list so that 79 maps to <f1> in the autorun.bat I am testing with. And I did test Keyboard Input Events using <f0>, <f1>, <f2>, etc. and these did not work with the new autorun.bat - and also no longer worked as function keys from a full keyboard with the changes I made.
So implementation should work, but it seems the codes that the Log reports "No mapping for key xx", are not the same as being used for the InitializeNonPrintableKeyboardCodeList subroutine.
BrightSign devs are using some abnormally high numbers for some of those keys, so there is some sort of trickery or translation going on here, that the mapping translates to a different number, but I can't seem to find out anyway to get that corresponding number that BrightSign is using. Many of the numbers they are using don't correspond to standard ASCII, DEC, or HEX values that are pretty much a standard worldwide.
That is about as far as I can get with that, unless BrightSign wants to be forthcoming with what the key mapping actually is so I can replace the F Keys in a custom autorun.bat that map to the Keypad. That mapping may also be hardcoded in the firmware, in which case nothing can be done until they change the firmware.
I am sorry I can't do more to help you.
It completely slipped my mind that it may work to intercept the keypreses in HTML and send a Zone Message using the HTMLZoneMessage plugin.
https://github.com/brightsign/BrightAuthor-Plugins/tree/master/HTMLZoneMessage
John! Thanks so much for your effort! I appreciate you looking into that so detailed very much.
Brandon, is there more info on this zone message Plugin? and, Is there actually a way of implementing the use of numpads in future Firmware updates? Could you give me an answer on this please?
has anyone tried using the elgato stream deck with brightsign players?
just a thought. isnt it possible to script (maybe with a delay on boot) a keystroke *NumLock on* without physically pressing that key?
There's an open request with the dev team (#25411) to add scriptable numlock support. This hasn't been implemented yet. if and when it gets implemented, then the numeric keypad would be supported.
thanks! thats good news!