Database Users

Modification request: long press keyboard letter to dial favorite contact

Hey xda devs, I love my new G2 but I'm not a fan of voice dial or scrolling through contacts. On my old Blackberry I could just long press a keyboard letter to dial an assigned contact. Could we have this functionality cooked into a future rom, pretty please? Thanks!
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

why would you slide open your keyboard or even bring up the virtual keyboard to make a phone call?

Because it would be incredibly easy to pop the phone open with my thumb, press one key to dial someone, then pop it closed and start talking. I just timed myself doing this and it took about one second to do one handed. This would be very useful while driving, carrying groceries, fumbling for keys, etc. Good enough for you?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

KeithRVA said:
Because it would be incredibly easy to pop the phone open with my thumb, press one key to dial someone, then pop it closed and start talking. I just timed myself doing this and it took about one second to do one handed. This would be very useful while driving, carrying groceries, fumbling for keys, etc. Good enough for you?
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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Use the frav in contacts. Just add the ppl you call most, that way u just hit dail then frav. Then select contact. They will be grouped together so its easy to find. But what u r asking for is speed dail I know senes has it but im sure there is a market app for it
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Yeah, looking for speed dial using keyboard only. Don't want to swipe to unlock the phone or tap the screen at all. Maybe there is an app for this...let's go look.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

backspace deleting entire text message

Does anybody else hate it when you press the fn key and try to correct something by pressing backspace and the whole message gets deleted? Any way to turn that feature off? It has happened to me way too many times now.

You might be able to edit the keyboard mappings to do this, but I don't have any experience in that area.
I just have gotten into the habit of holding modifier keys instead of tapping before the next key.

Sorry your a step ahead of me...... I have been wondering why my message gets wiped every so often..... must be the fn thing...... I thought i was going crazy

rj7766 said:
Sorry your a step ahead of me...... I have been wondering why my message gets wiped every so often..... must be the fn thing...... I thought i was going crazy
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Click to collapse
yep, you hit function and then backspace.

Just don't press FN...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Oh nevermind I think I just realized the situation you was describing lol
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

A_Flying_Fox said:
Just don't press FN...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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sometimes you are typing fast and then you try to add a question mark or something. you make a mistake and it still has that FN command blinking and you don't notice...you press backspace and bye bye to your whole message.

While were talking about keyboard issues here (since I couldn't really find another place to ask) does anyone know how to "select all" which would normally be ctrl + A, for the epic. I was using gmail and wanted to delete "all" my spam mail at once instead of one by one. I know it something I did on my N900 easily due to the physical keyboard but after reading through the keyboard shortcuts from Cnet I didn't see this particular shortcut listed.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

jalladi said:
While were talking about keyboard issues here (since I couldn't really find another place to ask) does anyone know how to "select all" which would normally be ctrl + A, for the epic. I was using gmail and wanted to delete "all" my spam mail at once instead of one by one. I know it something I did on my N900 easily due to the physical keyboard but after reading through the keyboard shortcuts from Cnet I didn't see this particular shortcut listed.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I believe I just push down on the screen for 3 seconds and select "select all"

1999TL said:
sometimes you are typing fast and then you try to add a question mark or something. you make a mistake and it still has that FN command blinking and you don't notice...you press backspace and bye bye to your whole message.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Happens to me at least once a day. Would love to see it go. : )
Sent from my SPH-D700

Thanks for replying, I tried to long press on the screen in gmail but it only selects the the email I tap and when I long press the actual label for spam it doesn't do anything. I guess regular pc keyboard shortcuts aren't available with the keyboard on the epic, which is unfortunate... I love the keyboard though.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

fn backspace
Any one have any news on this issue, regarding turning off the FN+backspace = erasing an entire line?
It happens to me AT LEAST once a week, but it's gotten old really fast. I agree with several users...it's just a function I don't need and end up accidentally deleting lines as a result. If I could just turn it off, I'd be MUCH happier than wishing it was there since I never use it.
Whether it's a setting or even an app or add-on that can help I'd appreciate it.

As much as I love the Epic overall, and I may well be in the minority on this one, but even months into owning it the biggest thing that screws me up continually coming from my previous keyboard phone is the placement of the Fn key to begin with. If I had designed this phone, the Fn and Shift keys would be interchanged position wise with the Fn key the one in the very bottom left corner.

It happened to me with droidx multitouch kb installed
Sent from Snarf high on SRF 1.02 till freezes are fixed

Random Things you may not know about your EPIC 4G...?

So it doesnt seem as though there is a thread like this for the Epic.
I figured this would be a good place to list a bunch of random things you've found while "tinkering" with you Epic 4G.
Example:
While in Camera mode, if you hit the power button it locks the camera. No buttons can be pushed until you "Unlock" the camera by pressing the power button once more. I figured this allows you to keep the camera app open without snapping random shots, so that when you are ready the camera app is readily available.
This same method works in the video player function...I found this out cus I have a 2 year old that loves to watch his cartoons on my phone. Well he always tends to touch the screen and it usually interrupts the vid (streaming)...so now I just lock the video player (push the power button while video is playing) and now he can touch it all he wants and it wont interrupt the vid!
What else do you guys/gals know about this AWESOME phone!!???
-MaD

I just found out if you workout with your epic resting against your skin, you're risking it might get water damaged.

Here's something:
If you press down on the notifications tab at the top of your phone, and slide it to either the left or right, you can toggle the brightness (if it is set to MANUAL, and you can do this under the phone's settings).

shook187 said:
I just found out if you workout with your epic resting against your skin, you're risking it might get water damaged.
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Click to collapse
SALTwater damage.
Learn to sweat distilled water. It's much safer for electronics

When on your contact list, swipe left to text or right to call that contact.

dwallersv said:
SALTwater damage.
Learn to sweat distilled water. It's much safer for electronics
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I was being sarcastic when I wrote that. I read that happend to someone here.

Darkshneider said:
When on your contact list, swipe left to text or right to call that contact.
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dear god that's nifty!

Darkshneider said:
When on your contact list, swipe left to text or right to call that contact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same for the message list
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I never knew the phone had a front facing camera until 2 weeks ago. I've had the phone since soon after it came out

tuttjs said:
I never knew the phone had a front facing camera until 2 weeks ago. I've had the phone since soon after it came out
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Seriously? Holy ****e dude, that was one of the key things the Epic had over the other guys.

Well, I knew this but some may not. On the physical keyboard, if you double press the "Shift" or "FN" keys, it does "Caps lock" and "Function Lock"
Sent from my always stock, EB13 Epic, awaiting EC05.

i recently learned that if you dial a number and hit the call icon this thing will actually make phone calls!!! f00king amazing, here i just thought it ran apps,played games,video and movies.
Ziing!

BopChie said:
i recently learned that if you dial a number and hit the call icon this thing will actually make phone calls!!! f00king amazing, here i just thought it ran apps,played games,video and movies.
Ziing!
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Confirmed. Wow I Just tried this and it's pretty amazing! +11111111

Here's another one that's semi-useful.
This will only work with the stock SWYPE keyboard. Now there are some complications usually when trying to copy/paste text with androids. If you have a keyboard, you can easily hold "shift" and swype across the text you are trying to copy.
Well with the SWYPE keyboard, if you do not want to open up the physical keyboard, you have the option of pressing the "i" button at the bottom (next to SYM) and if you hold that and swype on over to SYM and back to the "i" button, a menu with several different commands will show up. I'm not too familiar with how to use it, but I know it gives you the option to copy/paste, move up and down and select text fairly easy.

OperationMove said:
Confirmed. Wow I Just tried this and it's pretty amazing! +11111111
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lol... learn something new every day ha?

zanderman112 said:
Well, I knew this but some may not. On the physical keyboard, if you double press the "Shift" or "FN" keys, it does "Caps lock" and "Function Lock"
Sent from my always stock, EB13 Epic, awaiting EC05.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every phone has the same double press.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

BopChie said:
i recently learned that if you dial a number and hit the call icon this thing will actually make phone calls!!! f00king amazing, here i just thought it ran apps,played games,video and movies.
Ziing!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny sh|t... a shrink actually told me that she has teen clients who get in trouble, and lose their text priveledges, and are really going crazy, shrink suggests just making a voice call... the kid looks terrified, to call their 'best friend'...I really hope FFCs can help this... thats just sad. Its not even basement dwellers either, these are 'popular kids'.... I think Skynet has already won. Anyways, what phone are you getting next????

johnp1991 said:
Every phone has the same double press.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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I was just gonna let that one slide... figured they were new to having a phone...

Pettro said:
Well with the SWYPE keyboard, if you do not want to open up the physical keyboard, you have the option of pressing the "i" button at the bottom (next to SYM) and if you hold that and swype on over to SYM and back to the "i" button, a menu with several different commands will show up. I'm not too familiar with how to use it, but I know it gives you the option to copy/paste, move up and down and select text fairly easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need to swype back to the "i" button. Swyping from the "i" button over to the SYM button brings up the same options. Gives you arrow keys which are pretty awesome to use. Also, if you swype from the "i" button over to the "F" key, it brings up a nice keypad for you to input numbers/symbols.
Also, while on the topic of swyping, here are some other cool things:
If you want to capitalize a letter, you swype from that letter off of the swype keyboard entirely and then continue swyping. So if you wanted for some reason to type CaT, you would swype from the "c" key off of the keyboard entirely and then over to the "a" key and then over to the "t" key and then off the keyboard entirely again.
If you want to hit a double letter, like the two o's in Google, you swype from the "g" over to the "o" and swirl around on it for a second and then continue swyping the rest of the word. The swirling around doubles whatever key you are swirling over.

Pettro said:
Here's another one that's semi-useful.
Well with the SWYPE keyboard, if you do not want to open up the physical keyboard, you have the option of pressing the "i" button at the bottom (next to SYM) and if you hold that and swype on over to SYM and back to the "i" button, a menu with several different commands will show up. I'm not too familiar with how to use it, but I know it gives you the option to copy/paste, move up and down and select text fairly easily.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just swiping from the swype(or i/info depending on your version/rom/theme) key to sym alone will open that layout.
heres another swipe shortcut
start at the swype/info key then swipe diagonaly to the upper right and let go when your past the keyboard layout.... This will open the numerical keypad.
last one it got (that i can think of at the moment)
you can usually simulate a battery pull/force reset if your softlocked by holding cam+vol_up+power... saved me some hassle when i had a hard case on my epic many times when experimenting with roms/kernel/tweaks.
UPDATE:
muyoso has apparently tapped into my brain and beat me to it LOL... and sombish... yeah u can just swipe from the info to the f and get numerical keypad also

Trackpad sleep??

Is this possible by any means??
What I mean is we have trackpad wake, which is nice. But is there anything we can do so that when you long press the trackpad it locks the phone? Just an idea I've had floatin around..
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA App

Good idea but the phone would unlock easier in ur Pocket...not a big fan of Pock Dialing - I'll stick to the OldSchool Method on this one...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Y49Si said:
Good idea but the phone would unlock easier in ur Pocket...not a big fan of Pock Dialing - I'll stick to the OldSchool Method on this one...
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Click to collapse
Huh? How would this make the phone easier to unlock on your pocket? I think you misunderstand. The OP is asking about a feature to LOCK/SLEEP the phone using the trackpad button. Did you think he meant wake/unlock the phone?
A mod to wake the phone with the trackpad button already exists, and its pretty awesome. It turns on the screen, but does not unlock the phone, same as the "normal" power button. You still have to swipe to unlock. And doing so in your pocket is very unlikely.

Ahh u are correct....I mis-read his post. My apologies to the OP and its actually a pretty good idea!
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

I need this too, cause my power button is broken(sometimes works), I dip it on cup holder with water
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Is there a possible link that we may be directed to?

from what ive hear it doesnt exist becuase I was looking for this earlier. the trackpad has a mind of its own sometimes...

Mog said:
from what ive hear it doesnt exist becuase I was looking for this earlier. the trackpad has a mind of its own sometimes...
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Click to collapse
Yes...Very True - in certain lighting condtions my cursor jumps all over the screen unless I cover my tackpad with my thumb...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.katecca.screenofflock&feature=search_result
Can take over the default long-press of the search button. And if your running CM7 you can change the search button to launch the app, so no need for a long press

Remap the trackpad press to the power button.
IE - it becomes the power button, you could then change the power button to something like Play/Pause, Trackpad, etc.
It will still boot with the power button, a remap only affects the Android system.

App idea: Alt+Tab style, single click switch to previous app. Exist already?

I I have looked all over for an app to do this but have found nothing. I am ready to start writing my own, but want to make sure it doesn't exist already? Seems hard to believe no one has done this yet!?
say i need to copy/paste listing descriptions from evernote into ebay... I want a QUICK trigger, maybe double tapping home or something that shows a simple app list in a transparent overlay.
Pick the ebay app and it loads. After pasting the title there, double tap home again and instantly, it flips back to Evernote where I can repeat this process with the description and other fields. Maybe the volume key could flip between the two apps, or better yet, a swipe.
Seeing how I use that technique a million times a day, it would save countless hours over all the other task manager types that always load a display of all (or none) of the recent apps when triggered. I don't know about everybody else, but there's a 90% chance that if I want to quickly flip to another app, it's because I intend to quickly flip right back in a few seconds.
This is such a vital function for me on computers that I dedicate a whole button on my mouse to pressing Alt+Tab so I can flip back and forth very fast. I have become very spoiled by that technique and can't stand doing work on Android just because of its annoyingly slow and painful "task manager" if you can even call it that. TIA!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app

toothpick5 said:
I I have looked all over for an app to do this but have found nothing. I am ready to start writing my own, but want to make sure it doesn't exist already? Seems hard to believe no one has done this yet!?
say i need to copy/paste listing descriptions from evernote into ebay... I want a QUICK trigger, like double tap home (or whatever) that shows a simple app list in a transparent overlay.
Pick the ebay app and it loads. After pasting the title there, double tap home again and instantly, it flips back to Evernote where I can repeat this process with the description and other fields. Maybe the volume key could flip between the two apps, or better yet, a swipe.
Seeing how I use that technique a million times a day, it would save countless hours over all the other task manager types that always load a display of all (or none) of the recent apps when triggered. I don't know about everybody else, but there's a 90% chance that if I want to quickly flip to another app, it's because I intend to quickly flip right back in a few seconds.
This is such a vital function for me on computers that I dedicate a whole button on my mouse to pressing Alt+Tab so I can flip back and forth very fast. I have become very spoiled by that technique and can't stand doing work on Android just because of its annoyingly slow and painful "task manager" if you can even call it that. TIA!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
I am sorry, but you cannot override the home button.
You could try one of the various side bar apps though.

It could be a swipe gesture or anything that requires only ONE step. I don't want to bring up an app selection list on every switch, but just the first time. Maybe a notification bar button could bring up the selector, then a side swipe gesture could flip back and forth between the two apps? It should be simple to write this. I just cant believe that it hasn't already been done? Surely someone knows of an existing app?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app

toothpick5 said:
It could be a swipe gesture or anything that requires only ONE step. I don't want to bring up an app selection list on every switch, but just the first time. Maybe a notification bar button could bring up the selector, then a side swipe gesture could flip back and forth between the two apps? It should be simple to write this. I just cant believe that it hasn't already been done? Surely someone knows of an existing app?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that the part of the screen which will be "swipeable" will not react to touch events anymore.

nikwen said:
The problem is that the part of the screen which will be "swipeable" will not react to touch events anymore.
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Click to collapse
Yeah. But it could be a small invisible hotzone like many of the task managers do. Swiping is just for the cool factor really. Using the volume button should work just fine for my needs. Would that work? The volume button can still listen to an app thats not in focus because music players do it right? But i guess that would be a problem if one of the switched apps overrides the volume control...? Any suggestions? If nobody has pointed out an existing app with this capability I will start on it tonight. I'm still a newb to Android but, I am majoring in programming so I gotta jump in on something!

toothpick5 said:
Yeah. But it could be a small invisible hotzone like many of the task managers do. Swiping is just for the cool factor really. Using the volume button should work just fine for my needs. Would that work? The volume button can still listen to an app thats not in focus because music players do it right? But i guess that would be a problem if one of the switched apps overrides the volume control...? Any suggestions? If nobody has pointed out an existing app with this capability I will start on it tonight. I'm still a newb to Android but, I am majoring in programming so I gotta jump in on something!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if I understand correctly you just want to have multitasking without having to hit the multitask button and then choose the app; you just want to be able to choose the app. I would say something like floating folders would work for you.