Database Users

Question about onscreen keyboard

Hi, after loving my Hermes for 2 years and talking myself out of upgrading to the Kaiser, Diamond, and Touch Pro as they just weren't quite "perfect" I think I have found my next device. The big screen and thinness are HUGE for me, and it seems that people are having no troubles running older apps with the funky screen rez. However I am really hesitant to give up a hardware keyboard....my question is two-fold...when rotated to landscape mode does the on-screen keyboard also rotate and enlarge so that you could use two thumbs to type with it? and is this device physically capable of multi-touch as with the Touch Pro and we are just waiting for XDA devs to write applications that unleash it? Multit-touch on devices this small is pure gimmick in every aspect EXCEPT on-screen keyboards (i.e. holding the shift key). I am willing to sacrifice some typing speed for the thinner waistline but don't want to go back to pecking with the stylus...
I've watched a ton of youtube video reviews but have yet to see anyone enter text in landscape mode or play video for that matter...any info on these questions from HD owners is GREATLY appreciated...thanks!!

There is no Multi-Touch screen in Touch HD...
And I think the standard sms application does not allow to rotate keyboard while writing text...May be some 3rd party software does it or some tweaks...

Even if everyone allready should know this: Get Gyrator 2 or GSEN
and you can rotate the screen at any time. Just search for it here on the boards.
I don't understand for what you would need a multitouch screen for typing. as you are only pushing one letter at a time anyway. I have got an LG Viewty now, and i can type extremely fast in landscape mode and multitouch wouldn't change a thing. Every normal phone keyboard is made so, that pushing shift will automatically be applied to the next letter/key you press. Or you can also switch between shift always on.

So, what is the best of that apps??
Gsen I know because I tried on my touch pro, but it didn't work 100%. Gyrator works best??

Anyone got any tips for texting as me and my HD are about to fall out!

Don't get me wrong, i love my phone and i think that it is a seriously cool piece of technology, but we are just not getting along at the moment when it comes to texting.
I've come from a n95, where i could quite happily bash out text messages all day with very few errors, however, on my HD i can hardly type a word correctly either using the full qwerty or phone keypad. I've tried to persevere with both, but things seem to be getting worse rather than better. I'm fine when using the stylus, but when using fingers I am all over the place.
The thing that annoys me most is when i press a key and the key increases in size (as it should) but then nothing appears in the message. The space bar is the worst culprit for this, i'll be typing away and the space bar will acknowledge the press, but when i check the message something like teoitoerteritktret will be there as the space bar presses haven't been put between the words.
So please help me and my HD to remain friends and if you can suggest alternative keyboards that can be downloaded or any tips that you have I'd be more than grateful to hear about them
Spud

For myself, texting has been great on the HD and I have pretty big fingers (i'm 6"4'...and sorry for the 'standard' units). What might help is using the keyboard in landscape if you're not already doing that, that way the keys are alot bigger, especialy in qwerty mode. Also, T9 might be helpful since it corrects mistakes (like hitting the wrong key for one of the letters). As for hitting the key but not having it input it into the text, that occurs when you touch the screen where the key is (good) but before picking up the finger moving it of that key (bad). This tends to occur when you 'roll' your finger onto/off a key. Another thing which might help is this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=479464&highlight=finger+keyboard (there might be a v2 out already...or still in testing not sure) which is suppose to be a more finger friendly keyboard. A last option which I can give you from the top of my head is Dutty's v1.8 ROM which i believe uses a different keyboard which looks a bit more finger friendly as well.
Hope atleast some of this helps and good luck

I had a bit of difficulty typing at the beginning with the HD, I tried all the keyboards. Even in landscape (full QWERTY) although better than portrayed I found the Compact Keyboard to be the most effective way of typing. I was going to choose the default phone keypad where you have 3 letters but with compact QWERTY you have 2 keys on each key which is even better/faster/accurate (T9-wise). I typed for 2 weeks and now rarely make mistakes, sometimes I even type taking my eyes of the screen because I have memorised the distance between the keys.

I hated the keyboards and nearly wanted to throw the HD in the bin.
This is what I recommend for fast accurate texting.
Use PHONEPAD keyboard. Large keys so you can't accidentally hit the wrong key.
Turn on T9 input (not ABC)
In T9 settings, from Settings, Input, Options menu, uncheck Auto-Substitution and Word Completion in ABC mode. The other two leave checked.
In Word Completion tab, uncheck Suggest words when entering text and check box for Enable auto correct.
I found my frustration came from the words i was typing were automatically changed and substitued when i didn't want them to.
good luck!

Do you know if Cootek TouchPal works on HTC Touch HD ?
I use it on both my HTC Prophet and Diamond and I really like it.
IMHO, it's much better than the provided full and compact qwerty keyboards.
The only drawback is that it's not free software.
Just my two cents.
Cheers.
David

Thanks for the input guys, i've gone for the finger keyboard option to start with and intial impressions are that it is much better, not perfect though, but certainly better

Try getting a smaller keyboard and you will have a great time typing with the stylus.

i can type pretty fast on the phone pad method on my touch HD with t9 activated. the interface is good, much better than the one they included on the universal.
i cant type as fast as i did on my touch dual, but almost as fast now since i've had practise.
i never got the point of full qwerty onscreen, i cant stand them lol, i always use phonepad method. plus with this you can text using one hand

movig from a physical keyboard to a touchscreen is indeed a big change of habits. rather than suggesting a input method I would suggest you some behaviors that helped me a lot in the beginning:
-do not try to type when walking as it makes aiming the keys more difficult
-try to look at the actual keys not at the word written, look at the word every now and then to check for errors
-take your time, it needs concentration on the beginning a.k.a do not try to type too fast just to realize you can do it, speed comes with practice
-try all the input methods with all possible combinations to see what fits you most
-not really the thread to discuss about this, but there are some tweaks and programs available to your device that help a lot, mainly like:
touchresponse by snailslug which provides a small vibration every time you hit the screen, this helps on understanding whether you actually pressed the key
hd tweak and advanced configuration tools can increase the sensitivity of your touchscreen so that less pressure is needed to interact with it
these small tips and a lot of patience helped me a lot in the beginning, now (just after a couple months) I happily type with full qwerty on portrait only both with 2 and 1 hand (and i'm 1m90 tall so don't have exactly small fingers ... and I feel there is a lot more room for improvement

I have just upgraded to the Touch HD. My previous two phones were the TyTn and the TyTn 2 with hardware keyboards, and as you can imagine how well I'd get on with the touch screen for typing was my biggest concern.
I've played around a bit and found the transition much easier than expected, I find that using the QWERTY keyboard with the T9 dictionary turned on works best for me.
As someone else has mentioned, don't try and touch type, that will only lead to mistakes, look at the buttons as you press them and then check your text every so often to make sure it's how you think it should be.

Try Cootek's Touchpal keyboard, best I've tried so far for HD.
There are some others that you may get on with, like Resco and CM.

try fingerkeyboard, it works better for me than the stock HTC keyboard

I've always used FSK (FULL SIZE KEYBOARD) by Spb. I've used it back when I was using an Eten and 5 HTC products later, I've got it on my HD.
Because the screen is larger, it has the tiniest amount of distortion on HD but nothing that makes a big difference.
Like someone mentioned, I've gotten use to using a stylus so many times it's just as fast for me to use the little keyboard.
But then again, I've never been one of those 500 texts a minute person anyway.
HTH's,
Mark

jst first day of my HD usage...i used to have a nokia E61i (still got it) and coupled with nimbuzz i was easily using my mobile to chat to friends and family for abt 3 hours non stop easily like np... but...jst 15 mins of typing on HD and like omg i could only see one line of the conversation box ( landscape mode) and den the keyboard was lil small on te potrait mode. btw...used finger keyboard ver 2 to type...n in jst some minutes my wrist was hurting from keeping the mobile up ( e61i waws heavy as well but was no problemo to me :|) so u people got any sugessions i could try ? Else i'll have to switch to Xperia X1 cuz i would have had no choice left ....help me out plz guys...

I was using my nephew's iPod Touch the other day and the keyboard had a feature I quite liked. When you pressed a key it popped up, but above your finger, so you could actually see what key had been pressed. Are there any apps that copy this?

Plonker said:
I was using my nephew's iPod Touch the other day and the keyboard had a feature I quite liked. When you pressed a key it popped up, but above your finger, so you could actually see what key had been pressed. Are there any apps that copy this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the new HTC keyboard from the new manilla has this that feature now. I think you can get the new keyboard from the app section or the development part.

I was very used to physical keypad on Nokia phone. When I switched over to D810/Trinity, I was using Phonepad, then when TouchPal was launched, I started using it. Since then, TouchPal has been my keyboard. I am using the compact qwerty instead of Phonepad layout. TouchPal has pretty good predictive engine. If you type mostly English or those language supported by TouchPal, then it will be great. Else predictive engine may not be that helpful.
Anyway, what's helpful about TouchPal is also the swipe feature. e.g. swiping the word backward give you the past tense, upward gives you the plural, forward gives you the continuous tense, downward give you the other choices related to the word.
On the key it self, swiping left or right allow you to select the specific letter in the key : 2 letters per key, plus a number (bottom) and a symbol (top). Swiping upward gives you the capital letter, downward gives you the symbol and up and then downward give you the number. Cool, right?!
It comes with copy and paste as well as other useful symbol, preset words features.

For those who really really hate typing, check out ShapeWriter. You 'glide' from one key to another without lifting your finger. Just that the keyboard layout is not too big. The key is pretty small. I'm waiting for 'Swype' which has the same technology, but with bigger key. Sadly, it's not out yet.

Keyboard - Are you happy?

Hi All,
I've tried for the past several days to find any word on what it's like typing on the TD2/Pure keyboard and cannot seem to find anything substantial. I like the look and feel of the phone and think I want one. However, I need to know from someone who has had one for a while what it's like typing on it daily. Speaking for me, I've got short stubby fingers and thumbs. Is that a problem? Will I end up using the stylus most of the time?
Also in the store, the keyboard wouldn't switch to landscape in anything other than the messaging applications. When I tried to use it in Word, it stayed in portrait mode.
Thanks in advance.

I've had my Pure for 3 days. I been using the Fuze for the past year. It's taking a little while to get use to the on-screen keyboard. I too have fat fingers. A friend of mine just bought a Sprint Hero. I really like the on-screen keyboard that comes with it. If I can find a similiar one for the Pure I'll be a lot happier. In the meantime I'll keep using the stylus when I need to type quickly and accurately.

had my Topaz since may 7th, many texts every day and its good Not as fast as a physical keypad, and you cant touche type well with it ofc. BUT, it is easy. It has auto correction built in, so you almost always get the right words. I run mine atm in Phone keypad mode, (2abc 3def etc) because the keys are bigger, altho the full Qwerty is also good
Also i by no means have small hands and i almost never use the stylus ;P

I got fat fingers as well and no nails. (I bite) and I can say I type really quick on the keyboad. I would type quick on the original HTC Touch aswell and that screen sucked. What I've noticted is that people use the tip and or pad of their thumb which blocks the screen. I type and use the phone by using the inner top edge of my thumbs. I get a bettr view of the screen and can type very accurtate in portrait view. I use both thumbs when typing aswell.
Oh and this is on the qwerty keyboard. People are surprised at how fast I can type on it. Way faster than using a normal keyboard. (1-9) I would a like to sugest to try out the 20key qwerty if you are having problems with the full qwrety. type a blackberry.

This is the first device I've used that didn't have actual keys, and for the first couple of hours, I got frustrated and resorted to the stylus. However, after another couple of hours making a good attempt to get used to the keyboard, I did, and my accuracy and speed are both pretty good now.

I use Fingerkeyboard and I am very happy. Of course it was better on my blackstone than on my topaz due to the bigger screen, but I found that I can type faster on this on-screen keyboard than I could on the physical keyboard of the xperia... On-screen keyboards are more sensitive IMO.

Well - After everything I had read and studied, I made the leap yesterday and purchased the Pure. It was a bit awkward at first and the typing was pretty much hit and miss. After burning through a few emails and texts, I think I've got the hang of it. It does seem that part of my problem is the screen calibration is a bit off. I figured this out by using the stylus in the contact list and if I hit the "T", the "S" list came up. The typing was easier than I expected but it's amazing how much screen real estate the keyboard takes up in landscape mode.
Thanks for all the replies.

Yeah you can recallibrate in the settings, will help Glad you got one.

I love it!
Here's a tip... Instead of pecking at the letters, if you hold your finger on the letter for just a tad longer, it will "popup" the letter. Got the wrong one, just roll your finger a little until the right one comes up.
You don't have much time to do this, but it's very easy to get used to!

OracleBlue said:
Well - After everything I had read and studied, I made the leap yesterday and purchased the Pure. It was a bit awkward at first and the typing was pretty much hit and miss. After burning through a few emails and texts, I think I've got the hang of it. It does seem that part of my problem is the screen calibration is a bit off. I figured this out by using the stylus in the contact list and if I hit the "T", the "S" list came up. The typing was easier than I expected but it's amazing how much screen real estate the keyboard takes up in landscape mode.
Thanks for all the replies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's strange that it's off like that. My Topaz came precalibrated just fine. Go to Settings in Touchflo then Menu>All Settings>System>Screen and you should be able to re-calibrate. If its like the original TD2 it you won't be able to re-calibrate unless you flash a cooked ROM.
Do you use both thumbs or one hand and one finger to type. Both thumbs work grand for me.

The keyboard itself is wonderful, nice layout and everything. But sometimes even if I press kinda hard the key I pressed don't show up which means I always have to press kinda hard to be sure to get the key I pressed.

Does anybody have the 20 key keyboard .cab? I might give it a go again. Can't seem to find it...

ArtieQ said:
The keyboard itself is wonderful, nice layout and everything. But sometimes even if I press kinda hard the key I pressed don't show up which means I always have to press kinda hard to be sure to get the key I pressed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hold they key on the screen it should pop up the letter to verify. Maybe that's a euro td2 vs usa pure thing?
My unlocked diamond did this out of the box, so hmmm.

syntrix said:
Hold they key on the screen it should pop up the letter to verify. Maybe that's a euro td2 vs usa pure thing?
My unlocked diamond did this out of the box, so hmmm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe I confused you a little, I mean when I press on the screen nothing happens which means I have to press harder than I want to. It might be the TD2 screen itself because if you press on it you can feel that goofy thing, it's like some plastic glass instead of real glass (like on Diamond).

I gotcha.
I have a diamond too, and the screen seems just the same.
I have noticed that the actual LCD is sunk a little more down on the TD2 over the TD.
I actually welcome this as there's less glare and better readability of the screen.

try cliquick keyboard its the largest i can find lol

Love my HD2 but my fingers are too big for it? :S

Hi Guys,
Just got my HTC HD2 last night on O2 Ireland (Silent release yesterday),
Love the phone but one thing that is really annoying me is the onscreen keyboard, the qwerty and compact qwerty are useless to me, even in landscape mode, but I can use the numeric keypad one although I often have the odd mistake here unless I type really slow and think about it.
Basically what normally happens is as I have quite big fingers, sometimes I tough most of the key I want and a small amount of the key underneath, which is really irritating me as it's taking me 10x longer to send a message than it does on my N95 8GB.
I love the phone but the slow text entry really is making me stick with the N95 8GB right now. I was wondering if anyone had any advice? I wish I could have some nice bigger keypad like when you put the pin in when you turn the phone on and that would be much easier for me!
Is there any way I can use or install any other text input options, or what about bluetooth keypads (Keyboards not really acceptable as they're too big but a keypad could work)
Cheers for any advice

Dear JustinJJ,
I had the same problem, until I relaised I had a hardware screen problem. There are a number of tests you can do to find out if you have a hardware problem.
Just have a look on the forum.
Regards and best wishes with your typing.
Oh, just to let you know, I am on my third HD2 in less than a month, and this is the first time I can type the A-Z without making a mistake. So it was hardware not my fingers.
ADC (Yateley, UK)

Try another keyboard, like Swype?
It needs lots of practice, especially when you were using phone with keypad in the past.

I was going to try Swype over the weekend and see how that goes, it looks quite good but I have doubts because of the much smaller key size which makes me worry a little bit.
I've already tried to recalibrate the screen which helped a little bit, but it's still nowhere near as nice as typing with an actual phone keypad.
It really annoys me as I love the phone so much for everything else apart from text entry!

Practice makes perfect seriously though, it just takes a bit of time to get used to it. Back in December someone made a handy little programme - I think it's called touch mark - which plots where you touch the screen and compares it to where you should be touching the screen, quite handy to "retrain" your finger/eye coordination... will go see if I can find the link to it.
Edit: found it http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=594158&highlight=touchmark

going from resistive to capacitive screen is a big jump; you WILL make a lot of mistakes on the "fat finger" phenomenon, but eventually you will get better (right now i can type faster and with better accuracy on the iphone screen than my X1a keyboard )

Isadora said:
Practice makes perfect seriously though, it just takes a bit of time to get used to it. Back in December someone made a handy little programme - I think it's called touch mark - which plots where you touch the screen and compares it to where you should be touching the screen, quite handy to "retrain" your finger/eye coordination... will go see if I can find the link to it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed,
Touch mark can be quite helpfull to retrain your touching skills
Grtz,
Degake

I use swype and it's mostly great (using it now, in fact) quite surprising how inaccurate you can be with it and it still gets it right.
regarding the capacitive screen in general, the angle of your finger can make all the difference, the pad being recognized much more accurately than the tip/edge, and even the temperature.... cold dry skin = jumpy detection.
I also found that no matter how much I align the screen, for best results my aim must always be slightly up and left if where I'm aiming....not much, just a bit.

I used Cootek touchpal on my HTC HD. I use the predicitive text feature with the 3 letters in each box. It does a hell of a job predicting my words. I find that it types faster than when I was on my blackberry. As in all things new you have to train yourself on it and eventually it becomes natural.
The only typing I never wanted to master was the number pad t9 crap. I got so fed up with it I didn't use it went to blackberry...

I went from a SE W910i with a physical numpad to the HD2 and the first week typing on the HD2 was torture, I dreaded typing a simple "On my way" SMS and kept everything as short as possible. After a week or two I started understanding how it works and started retraining myself in regards to hitting the right key. A few things I noticed are that you don't press the key like you would on a physical keyboard so you need a much "lighter" touch and try to just tap the screen with the tip of your finger. Patience is one of your biggest friends when learning to type and I've sat down with my HD2 for dedicated sessions on typing and have learnt a lot. I also avoid using my thumbs as they are too wide and flat and tend to not hit the keys I want, I usually hold the phone in one hand and "type" with the index finger of the other hand. Now I can type as fast as I would on a normal numpad keyboard but not as fast as I could with my G1.
I've owned a N95 and found the keys were too small and I usually hit more than one at a time which was most annoying. So I don't think your fingers are too big.
I've never tried any other keyboard program but Swype looks like it could be loads of fun as well as more accurate. So give it a week or two to get used to typing and if you still have problems then you may have a faulty screen.

i also use touchpal as it has a great auto correction. first i used the three letters in one box, but now i'm learning full qwertz to be more flexible.
never tried swype but this and touchpal seems to be the most famous osk's around.
a good way for me to reduce the sensitivity and also reduce errors is to apply a screen protector. i got one from - i think e-cell, which was recommended by a lot of users here at devs.

Tried swype, that was awful, partly because my fingers were too big and partly because I had to think about the letters and stop when moving my finger which messed the word generation up.
Tried Touchpal and found that a little better than the built in keyboard in keypad mode but the fact they moved the space to the right of the 9 key really messed it up for me, if they had it underneath it would be perfect but it really messes me up right now and the key after hitting it I always end up hitting wrong.
Then I tried Cliquick! I was in love straight away with it's huge keys this is the only editor I can type accurately with, and not make any mistakes by accidentally pressing the wrong keys. The only problem was this has no predictive text or no standard hardware style keypad mode so it is a little slow having to use multi-tap and an unfamiliar layout, but least it's accurate and less frustrating even if it is slow.
Does anyone know if they plan to release a predictive text add in or perhaps a standard keypad layour, or is there any plug-ins I can use to achieve the same effect.

So it isn't just ME...
samsamuel said:
...I also found that no matter how much I align the screen, for best results my aim must always be slightly up and left if where I'm aiming....not much, just a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's funny. I thought it was just ME. I realigned the screen and picked spots slightly BELOW the X.
Works great now when I actually click ON the icons...

Keyboard size

What is the biggest keyboard which can be installed on the HTC HD2? I have tried swype and the standard keyboard that comes with the phone, but I tend to be hitting the key next door at times resulting in me taking longer than I would like to send a simple text.
I haven't seen an Iphone keyboard before but I have not heard anyone mentioning the difficulties with the typing on that phone, I could be wrong of course.
I need some decent size keys to press, it wouldn't of been to bad if we had a stylus in the phone.

Trust me, the Iphone keyboard is harder to use.
I always miss the buttons on the standard keyboard, but is it really a problem?
XT9 corrects me 98% of the time.
And with swype its not a problem at all...
You are swyping the keyboard, right? Because its almost impossible to press the buttons.

Maybe my damn fingers are just too big, with swype I find myself rolling my finger to see if I'm swiping the right key or the one beside it. Oh well let's see how it goes.
Cheers

Then you could consider the possibility to move the keyboard on the horizontal way, using software as girator, then if you use both the thumbs with an angle of 90 degrees it is really easy to write, look in youtube a video that shows how a iphone user can write faster than one that use the great swype on hd2, it is just a matter of pratical skill that stems for some training. anyway there are software that use bigger keyboard, if I well remember is the spb keyboard.
3 solutions...
1)swype
2)training
3)spb keyboard
seems easy...

Yeap practice is definately the way forward in this case I think

sony007 said:
What is the biggest keyboard which can be installed on the HTC HD2? I have tried swype and the standard keyboard that comes with the phone, but I tend to be hitting the key next door at times resulting in me taking longer than I would like to send a simple text.
I haven't seen an Iphone keyboard before but I have not heard anyone mentioning the difficulties with the typing on that phone, I could be wrong of course.
I need some decent size keys to press, it wouldn't of been to bad if we had a stylus in the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the iphone is much more accurate then hd2.i own the hd2 and the htc shift.

Accuracy depends on each and every person. You can`t say that one keyboard is more accurate than another, because only the person typing can be more or less accurate when using one of the keyboards. I`ve used both the iPhone and the HD2 (which I own) and I would go for the HD2`s keyboard anytime. But that`s just my opinion.
As for the OP`s problem, use SPB Keyboard if you have a hard time typing on the stock keyboard.