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alright. so i have noticed that there are many different keyboard styles, features, and fuctionalities.
but there is one huge thing missing. and it took me until right now to figure out what it was.
we are missing personalization and versatility.
i am on a mission to create the best onscreen keyboard that xda has ever seen.
obviously i cannot do this alone.
i am great at graphics and anamations but programming isnt exactly my strong point. so ifanyone and i mean anyone is intrested in this project, definitly post here..and also a pm. to me would be greatly appreciated.
i have high hopes for this project and i hope everyone else does too.
you can also post here if there are options/features that you look for in an on screen keyboard.
or you can just wish us luck!
thanks everyone =)
What I would like to see:
A combination between the finger-usable PCM Keyboard,
and the gestures of the WM5-keyboard
Something like TouchPal from CooTek but taking up a little less screen realestate would be amazing.Wish i could help with the coding, but I've only taken one class of c++ and I know I wouldn't be any help. Good luck with this project, sounds really cool.
I think a 1/2 screen finger-friendly qwerty is ideal. One that has basic punctuation keys (Period, comma, exclamation, question) on the primary input screen.
Unfortunately, I don't have skills/time to work on initial development, but very willing to test as I am in search of the best on screen keyboard and I can provide experienced and thorough feedback.
PPC6800- Titan
WM6 2.17.651
Radio 1.47.01
I suggest the main keyboard window to be one or two lines with option and buttons which show the main keyboard layouts with tap and hold to navigate to the desired letter. So the layout window that can be semi transparent to allow see what you write not need to be all the time on screen and covers a big part of her. Hope you understand what I mean cause my english are not so good.
brilliant idea
text assigneable keys, as in assigning '[email protected]' so it can be called at any time, and other assignable texts. I like the touchpal keyboard, but it does take up too much space and there is a lot going on. Resco just updated their's and I am not sure I like the new one, it is very much like the pocketcm keyboard, so why pay $19 for resco's??? I can't program, but will help in usability testing, so count me in if you think I can help the project. Good luck.
It's clear that there will be as many different visions of a "perfect keyboard" as there are people posting here. What is worst, there'll be many conflicting ones: "can the keys be bigger?", "the keys should be smaller", "i need one more page with numbers only", "who the hell needs a page with numbers only, it's a waste of memory", etc...
So i'd say that what a program with such ambitions would need the most is full customizability. Here's a roundup of features i'd like to see:
-key layout customizable trough an xml file.
-multiple pages switched by button actions (tap, hold, gesture) so we can have one default page, one with numbers, one with national symbols, etc.
-gestures, but not only right/left/up/down, like in default keyboard, but also diagonal, and ability to use a key from a different page upon a gesture, eg. when you press a letter and drag in bottom right direction, you'll get a lowercase national (like accented one) character, if you drag in top-right direction, you'll get an uppercase one.
-dynamic key binding: you copy a text to the clipboard, and with a certain key combination (set in the config file) you can bind it to some unoccupied space left for that purpose (you could use it for single letters/symbols, e-mail addresses, or even a bit longer texts - say up to 256 characters).
-did i mention customizability?
I guess that these features would be a good starting point and more functions could be added on the way.
So in short, my vision of the perfect keyboard would be actually just a framework, a tool, enabling the users to experiment with different layouts and functions and create their own perfect keyboard. And the XML config file plus additional graphics would be the keyboard itself. It would be for text input what BatteryStatus is for Today screen plugins.
Example config could look a bit like this:
Code:
<Keyboard name="example">
<Page name="Default" background="image.png" height="200">
<Row>
<Key name="A" image="key_normal.png" image_pressed="key_pressed.png" caption="A">
<Press action="typeText" argument="a"
<DragR action="specialKey" argument="Space" />
<DragBR action="overrideCaption" argument="ą" action="typeText" argument="ą" />
(...)
</Key>
(...)
</Row>
(...)
</Page>
(...)
</Keyboard>
Available key gestures could be tap, hold, double tap, drag - sideways, up and down, diagonally. Actions could be something like type text, override caption (replaces default key caption until the key released, so that you can see what you're typing), permanently change page to a defined one, change page to a different one for one keypress (like the shift does i the default keyboard), cycle pages, etc. Each key could trigger multiple actions - so it could type some text, and then change page to a different one (example - you have a page with large assignable buttons, so you can bing something like an e-mail address there. When you press that key and the address is typed, the keyboard will return to its default page).
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Good luck with the project, whatever direction it goes in.
hi, i have an idea that when merged with ur development skills may result in such a good keyboard, the idea is about a fullscreen keyboard just like spb keyboard but with a small addition that to be a transparent keyboard, take a look at the attached image, as u can see every button is one character just to make it easy as possible for pressing, i meant by the SP buttons that they r special buttons just like space, enter or they can be like TouchPal special buttons may be for numbers or special characters or an exit(hide) button and so on.
now i believe that it appears in the image that some of the characters is not clear because it is over another layer but dont forget that am poor with design so may be a good designer can give the characters a better effect to give clear image than the emboss effect i used in the image, may be a negative effect or something, even for the character square-background there is no need for it i just set it to show the character borders.
so developers i hope this can take place one day, and i hope from any graphic designer to take a screen shot from a mobile screen then try to add the characters layer with most possible clearance what ever is the background layer and then post here to see the result, thnx anyway ....
what if you make a mistake when typing and notice it at the end? how are you going to travel through the message as normally you will click where you want to put the cursor however when you click on yours it'll write a letter?
mmmm i didnt notice this, u r right, what about about pressing a special button which shows up/down/left/right transparent buttons with backspace/delete buttons just like touchpal?? so we have a new idea here that to give the keyboard all the control on a text, what do u think ??
I like the idea but another problem is how to make it qwerty-like in portrait mode?
I mean the limiting factor is the horizontal size of buttons (qwerty in portrait) not their height.
Applogies first, this is the extent of my artistic skills lol
if you based it on the hermes keyboard you can have ten keys on each row, so that would give each key a width of 32, and if you make the height of the key 40 that would give you a keyboard of 10 by 5, but u only need 10 by 4
im not sure if its workable but ill add the worst keyboard youve ever seen so you get the ideal
You are truly an artist! Teach me, master!
But that's in landscape (which is not a problem), what about portrait mode?
Really should just give TouchPal a go... I find that better than any hardware or virtual keyboard you can get...
actually am using TouchPal and it is my best keyboard and i believe that if windows mobile devices has a very sensitive touch screen just like the iPhone then i can say that TouchPal will be the best all the time, but with my htc touch i still have a problem with touchpal when i want to enter such words like password/email (without predicate) specially when sliding left/right, any way it was an idea ....
crusti said:
Applogies first, this is the extent of my artistic skills lol
if you based it on the hermes keyboard you can have ten keys on each row, so that would give each key a width of 32, and if you make the height of the key 40 that would give you a keyboard of 10 by 5, but u only need 10 by 4
im not sure if its workable but ill add the worst keyboard youve ever seen so you get the ideal
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...that just gave me turets!
Ok, so I've tried both, and both seem to work fairly well.
At a glance, I like Swype better, but I have to wait about 5-15 seconds before it will actually allow me to begin text input, and that really irks me. Any solution for this?
SlideIT is ok, but it isn't easy to add new words to the dictionary, and the graphics aren't the best. Seems outdated a bit, and could use improvement. But, it is NOT laggy like swype.
So, which do you guys use? What config do you use for each? (eg, what ROM, settings, etc) and what patches (if any) have you installed? (I'm trying to see if anyone has swype working smoothly lol)
Regards
Smith
Swype
Haven't tried SlideIT but i've got Swype on the TP2 and it seems pretty good... does take a while to recognise some words... also is a bit laggy when i reboot and it reverts back to the default windows SIP... takes about 10 seconds from when i hit the selector at the bottom of the screen to bring up the choices to then select Swype as the input type... sucks... but other than that... not a bad little app.
I'm using NRG's Energy Rom and Swipe seems to work really fast on there. It usually only takes 2 or 3 seconds for it to switch keyboards and then it seems to work really smoothly with not real delay at least for me.
Swype
Swype is awsome. I just want the keyboard to pop up automatically but it doesn't. when I am ready to text I have to activate the swype by clicking on it
Maybe the difference is my phone (AT&T Tilt2) compared to others. Or maybe it's the version of Swype (the one available elsewhere on this site with the HTC skin). I have no wait time with Swype, there is lag with SlideIT. Swype pops up quickly, input is quicker than SlideIT. Each time I have a reset, the next time I open an app that needs the keyboard, I have to reselect Swype as my default. But that setting remains till the next reset. There is a lag before that selection menu comes up. All in all, I'm with the op -- Swype takes it.
Swype is too slow and just sucks for our phones. Just get TouchPal. It really is the BEST on-screen keyboard out there lol. I have been using it for 4 years and never, ever found a keyboard so fast with typing and inputting puncuations.
Hah try it out. You do have to pay for it, but it doesn't bother you until after a month to register.
hey guys, here is the .cab to make swype your default keyboard. install the program and then change it to swype. and there ya go!
Swype Auto Capitalize
Since I've been experimenting with Android on my HD2 I notice that Swype auto capitalizes after each period(.). This is not so in Windows regardless of what Rom I have used. My question is should Swype auto capitalize after each period(.) in Windows? I have started using SlideIt today and it performs well. I hate having another program installed just for one convenience. Also SlideIt keyboard is plain. I wish it matched my theme or at least looked better.
The Andriod phone is probably using a newer version of Swype that what's available on WinMo.
I've used it on my phone without any noticable lag at all. I think it probably depends on the ROM you are running.
swype vs slideit
ok, so i'm using an HTC Desire, running froyo atm.
i was tossing up between the two sliding keyboard apps swype and slideIT and what i've concluded is that slideIT is the better one and here's why i think (just a matter of personal opinion off course):
swype has a better look, i'll give it that, but the look doesnt make up for the poorer performance.
first, the swype keyboard is bigger, which takes up more screen space meaning less background space. on top of that, the word suggestions are in a separate box that takes up more space and is right in the middle of your text entry field, it gets kind of annoying. slideit's word suggestions are in a neat little line just above the keyboard, making better use of space and presentation.
slideit is alot quicker, because the more you use it, the quicker you get at txting on it and swype just starts of with a slow feeling steady feeling, where as slideit keeps up with you and feels rather zippy and quick.
with swype, you have to scribble on a letter if you wanna spell a word with double identical letters in it (for example the word "letter" - you'd have to scribble on the 't' for it to recognise it as a double t instead of just sliding over it normally as on slideIT). i find that slideit recognises words better, even if its sloppy, it still does a lot better effort of recognising the correct word than swype does (even though swype has a speed - accuracy slider which still can't compete with the slideIT word recognition)
SlideIT only uses 2.2mb memory on your phone whereas swype (the compact english and spanish version uses 4.3mb and the larger version uses up to 10 mb).
the only advantage swype would have is that you dont have a seperate symbols and numbers (combined) keyboard, but mind you, that is only the touch of one button away.
adding words in slideIT is as easy as tap-typing them in and just hitting the '+' button. it's even got shortcuts where you can enter in any abbreviation or letter combination you want, and it will auto insert an email address or phrase that you've pre-programmed.
anyways, all in all, i payed the 5 and a bit euros for the full SlideIT version and never regretted it since. you wouldnt get me to use swype, even though its free
and would definitely recommend this over swype any day
Anyone know if it's possible to tweak the qwerty keyboard? I'm coming over from a TP2 and I like the builtin KB that HTC provides, and it should be even nicer on the larger screen, but it's not as handy as it could be. There are extra, blank keys on the 2/2 Numeric pad and I'm wondering if it's possible to add some keys. For instance it would be very handy to have a space key in the numeric pads.
I just upgraded from a TYTN II and i do miss the physical keyboard and i'm not too crazy over the software keyboard mainly because i don't get the tactile feel of pressing the keys.
But have you tried the Swype ? Needs a little getting used to but i'm getting pretty good with Swype and i feel it's a lot faster than typing. Plus it looks pretty cool
Ther are other keyboards. Sorry, I don't recall their name. One was very customizable though. I tired two different ones, but they didn't play nice with predictive text.
I have Resco and I like it well enough, though the version I have doesn't seem to have been built for 800x480 so it doesn't use all of the screen real estate. Therefore the keys are too small.
I like the HTC QWERTY keyboard a lot. It just doesn't seem to be customizable and therefore one has to switch between the screens more than it might otherwise be necessary in order to get the keys you're after. All I really want to do is to be able to enter a space while on the numeric screen. Not move the cursor, but to add an actual space. And to swap a couple of the characters on the 1/2 screen with others on the ABC and 2/2 screens.
Other than that I think it's a great keyboard. The haptic for me provides enough feedback and the keys are plenty big enough. My Leo should be here today or tomorrow and then I can start trying different things. If it turns out Resco's current KB can be made larger then that would probably be just the ticket assuming the HTC KB cannot be customized. I'm not really interested in tryiing Swype, but thanks for the tip.
I would imagine there's an XML keymap somewhere that we could conceivably edit but I'm not sure, i'd like to know the answer as well.
Tref said:
All I really want to do is to be able to enter a space while on the numeric screen. Not move the cursor, but to add an actual space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you dont mean THIS space then?
Hi,
I would love to know if there's a way to make the text that appears on the upper half of the screen as I write appear bigger? My phone is rooted and I'm using the SE default keyboard.
I would also like to know if there's any application that has spelling correction and suggestion similar to the one installed by default on all blackberry devices? When you type a wrong word it JUST has it underlined and in case you need suggestions you click on that word and it gives you all the suggestions available.
Thanks in advance.
This is not exactly what you are looking for, but I use SwiftKey, free in the Market. It has larger font and it has spell correction. Best of all, it has next word prediction. It learns how you write to suggest your next words. Many times I don't even have to type the next word, and most times I only have to type the first or second letter. It also has the most accurate voice to text, including punctuation. Last I checked the world speed typing record was set with SwiftKey. I can type emails and post to this forum faster than my pc keyboard. Only thing that takes a bit of getting used to is space bar always takes the suggested word.