I’ve experiemented with controlling Windows with my gamepad. It automatically came with mouse emulation, so I could control the computer with it. It was a relief to actually be able to lean back while at my computer. But I noticed something that annoyed me pretty fast: there’s no way to type. Most of my casual computer usage doesn’t involve typing, but if I feel a tweet coming on, I don’t feel lazy enough to reach for my iPhone just to say something inane. (I can lean forward for that.) But enough usage in this line of thought led me to an idea for a program that could take care of this for me. (Being a Computer Science student leads to these ideas.)

Asking Google about an on-screen keyboard leads to a bunch of sites that assume you only have the mouse to worry about. Granted, all of these programs also are operating with the target audience of disabled people with limited hand movement. This is a noble cause to be sure, but trying to navigate a mouse interface while an analog stick is your method of mouse movement can get annoying. Especially given the fact that the spaces between the keys is just small enough that the slightest stick movement shoves the mouse two letters over.

So the basic idea that I’m looking for is a software keyboard that I can navigate with the arrow keys. Despite my patience when it comes to dealing with a search engine, I couldn’t find even a speculative discussion over this. (And Bing wasn’t any better. The keyword garbage I fed it gave me the same mire as Google.) I guess the irony of controlling a software keyboard with the keyboard turned off its chances. Unless anyone can tell me something I missed, I need to develop it myself, despite being a beginner programmer.