On-screen button/option grid?

[Trane]

Hi, I'm working on a couple ideas with Clicker on OS X that I think would benefit from having a two-dimensional grid of options on the screen and would like to make sure I'm going about it the right way.

The first idea, is akin to a touch-screen home-theater remote. I think this has been discussed a little before with the best option being to load a bitmap and get pen coordinates.

The second idea, which is less touchscreen dependent, is to augment remote keyboard capability to show an on-screen listing of "special characters" that can be navigated via the directional pad. I'm using an HTC TyTN, which only has a limited set of symbols on the keyboard and Clicker doesn't allow me to open it's symbol menu. To have a one-dimensional list of symbols would be a waste of screen space, while a two-dimensional grid of symbols would provide quick and easy access to a large set of options.

Here's a good example of what I'm trying to do.. [img]http://www.pdagold.com/img/articles/en/large/0000000299_WRDb800620061229133432.gif[/img]
The box around the down arrow can be moved with the d-pad to select a character. Would the "keypad screen" facilitate this well or do I need to use a bitmap?

The bitmap option seems like it would be rather high bandwidth, since there would be a new image every time the cursor is moved. If a text grid were an option, with the current character being bold, it seems that that would work well.

Thanks!
- Mark