HexType

A Tildagon text-entry method that uses the twelve front-board touch pads and the joystick — packaged as a reusable dialog (HexTypeDialog, in text_entry.py) plus a small demo app (app.py).

Other apps can drop the dialog in exactly like the firmware's TextDialog:

from .text_entry import HexTypeDialog

class MyApp(app.App):
    async def run(self, render_update):
        text = await HexTypeDialog(self, initial="").run(render_update)
        if text is not False:          # False means the user cancelled
            ...

The host app only needs self.overlays (the app.App base provides it) and to call self.draw_overlays(ctx) in its draw — the dialog paints itself as a full-screen overlay while open and returns the entered string from run().

The pads split into two arcs of six. The left arc (pads 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7) picks a group of six characters; the right arc (pads 1–6) then picks one character from that group. Every character is two taps — a left pad, then a right pad.

The layout

Left pad	12	11	10	9	8	7
Group	row 1	row 2	row 3	row 4	row 5	row 6

Right pad	1	2	3	4	5	6
Column	1	2	3	4	5	6

Standard set (unshifted):

abcdef   ghijkl   mnopqr   stuvwx   yz1234   567890

So tap 12 then 1 → a, tap 7 then 6 → 0.

All six groups are shown around the left pads — each sitting on its own pad as two rows of three characters, so you can see which pad holds which group. When you tap a group the others dim to grey and the selected one turns yellow (matching its LED), and that group's six characters appear out on the right pads, one per pad, so you can see which pad enters which character. Tapping the selected group's pad again deselects it. The text you've typed sits in the middle of the screen, with the shift arrow just above it.

Shift sets (one-shot)

The joystick shifts the character set for the next character only — after you enter a character it snaps back to the standard set.

• Up → upper set: ABCDEF GHIJKL MNOPQR STUVWX YZ!@£€ %^&*()
• Down → symbol set: §±-_=+ []{}<> ‘“/| .,?~;:` (only four groups — the bottom two left pads are inactive here)

Press up (or down) again to cancel the shift without typing. The standard set shows nothing; the upper set shows an ↑ in the middle, the symbol set a ↓.

Controls

• Left arc (pads 12–7) — pick a group of six; tap the same pad again to deselect.
• Right arc (pads 1–6) — enter a character from the selected group.
• Joystick up / down — one-shot shift to the upper / symbol set.
• Joystick left — backspace (hold to repeat).
• Joystick right — space.
• Confirm (C) — return the entered text to the caller (see below).
• Cancel (F) — clear the text; when it's already empty, cancel the dialog (returns False).

The hex buttons A/B/D/E mirror the joystick up/right/down/left directions, so they work for shift / space / backspace too.

Confirming and the review screen

Pressing C returns the text to the caller. If the whole string already fits the edit screen (three lines or fewer) it returns straight away. If it's longer, the first C shows a review screen first — the whole string rendered across the full round display, up to eight lines, each as wide as the circle allows at its height (so the middle lines hold more than the top and bottom ones), measured with ctx.text_width to fit exactly. A second C then returns it, or F takes you back to editing. If the text is longer than eight lines will hold, the last line ends with an ellipsis.

The demo app

app.py is a thin demo of the dialog: press C to open the entry dialog, and whatever you enter is shown on a result screen where C re-opens it for editing and F leaves. All the interesting behaviour lives in text_entry.py.

Ring LEDs

While a group is selected its left pad glows amber and the six right pads glow green — the pads you can now tap to enter a character. The dialog takes the LEDs off the badge's background pattern while it's open and restores them when it closes.

A note on glyphs

Some of the symbol-set characters (£ € § ± ‘ “ and friends) may not exist in the badge's built-in font and can render as blanks on screen — but they still go into the text buffer correctly.

Installing (local sideload)

The badge OS has no TOML parser, so a dev-only metadata.json points at the Python import path. The on-badge folder must be hextype (matching apps.hextype.app).

mpremote connect /dev/cu.usbmodem83101 fs cp app.py text_entry.py metadata.json tildagon.toml :/apps/hextype/
mpremote connect /dev/cu.usbmodem83101 reset

Then pick HexType from the Apps menu. (Remove metadata.json before publishing to the app store — tildagon.toml is the store manifest.)

To reuse the dialog in another app, copy text_entry.py into that app's folder and from .text_entry import HexTypeDialog.

Requirements

Needs a 2026 front board (the one with the twelve touch pads).