Database Users

Swype in portrait, multitouch in landscape?

Basically, I wanted to know if it was possible to switch between swype and multitouch simply by rotating my DX. So, I would have swype for portrait, then rotate to multitouch in landscape. Many thanks.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

gingerbreadassassin said:
Basically, I wanted to know if it was possible to switch between swype and multitouch simply by rotating my DX. So, I would have swype for portrait, then rotate to multitouch in landscape. Many thanks.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
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it basically is multitouch with the addition of swype, you dont have to use the swype method...
Im lost...

Doesn't quite match up to the default multitouch... I get far more typos with the landscape swype than multitouch. Also, swype is faster and more accurate in portrait, but different occasions call for different methods.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

You might wanna look at Tasker. I've never used it, but it seems like it would be able to do such a thing.

I have your solution!
Go to the app store and get SlideIT keyboard. It is swype capable, and has a decent lanscape keyboard AND you can turn swipe on or of on the fly. I will admit that the landscape keyboard is not as smooth as the multitouch but it is way better than swipe. This is what I use daily.

The Tasker devs were emailed and said they currently cannot do this.
I would love this feature also.. combining Swype with Swiftkey

Help! Hardware Keyboard no longer predicting text

I installed the htc keyboard and now as a result my hardware keyboard no longer predicts text. I uninstalled the htc keyboard since it was a bit laggy. So far droid x keyboard seems to work the best, at least for me anyways. Because of my experiment I no longer have predictive text / auto correction (I went into settings and checked them) I suppose the only way around this is clearing something or uninstalling and reinstalling the hardware keyboard software? I wish the htc keyboard could've took over the predictive text (option in the keyboard said it would) but it doesnt.
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My hw keyboard has never predicted text or spell corrected.
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herbthehammer said:
My hw keyboard has never predicted text or spell corrected.
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Mine either.

install swiftkey from the market it is a lot like the stock one in many ways but it will give you word prediction on the HW keyboard. it has a cool feature to scan your sms and "learn" your most used words

The very first mod i did was install the droid x keyboard i uninstalled the htc keyboard and droid x keyboard and then reinstalled the droid x keyboard and functionality was restored! Definitely gonna check that app out though, thanks for the tip.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

shabbypenguin said:
install swiftkey from the market it is a lot like the stock one in many ways but it will give you word prediction on the HW keyboard. it has a cool feature to scan your sms and "learn" your most used words
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Smart Keyboard pro adds this feature as well.

Thanks for the swiftkey app info I wasn't aware of it works pretty good I love it.
dito33

Does anyone know a way to have predictive text for the physical keyboard without having to use another keyboard such as smart keyboard or swiftkey? I really like the gingerbread keyboard and I want to know if I can have that and predictive text for my physical keyboard.

qbking77 said:
Does anyone know a way to have predictive text for the physical keyboard without having to use another keyboard such as smart keyboard or swiftkey? I really like the gingerbread keyboard and I want to know if I can have that and predictive text for my physical keyboard.
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I was recently wondering this too because i like the latest swype, but also want predictive for HW keys... i only just started digging around but i'm sure there's a way to make this happen...

Menu>settings>language & keyboard>built in keyboard (or device keyboard depending on your rom) will auto replace misspelled words, but no predictive text without Touchpal or the like. I personally like Thumb Keyboard. Best theming, IMO.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

Im currently using adaptxt beta on the market . Been using it for a few day and its pretty good . a few add-onsFor it as well.
Works great with the hardware keyboard .
Here's a link info
http://adaptxt.com/adaptxtlive/android/features
Sent from my cm7 epicmtd.

No HTC Sense landscape with keyboard closed

This really bugs me, why the hell does HTC Sense work fine in landscape with the keyboard open, but the second you close it it goes to portait, and you can't change it back?
What's the actual reason for this, is it just a bug?

I wouldn't count it as a bug, it's just how Sense was designed - the thinking is that if your keyboard is closed, you'd want to hold your phone in portrait mode (except for specific apps). I believe there are a few tweaks that you can do to keep accelerometer-based rotation on *everywhere* (as opposed to the current slide-status-based rotation).

It's not a bug but I agree that it'd be nice to be able to have Sense in landscape mode with keyboard closed.
I'm not into development stuff at all but would it be difficult to develop a small app that would either cheat by sending the information "keyboard is open" when the phone is turned in landscape position or by adding a 2nd condition for displaying the landscape mode (if accelerometer turned 90deg then display landscape mode)?
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missparker76 said:
It's not a bug but I agree that it'd be nice to be able to have Sense in landscape mode with keyboard closed.
I'm not into development stuff at all but would it be difficult to develop a small app that would either cheat by sending the information "keyboard is open" when the phone is turned in landscape position or by adding a 2nd condition for displaying the landscape mode (if accelerometer turned 90deg then display landscape mode)?
Sent from my Vision using XDA App
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I think it can be made, but remember: if the device "thinks" the keyboard is opened, the softkeyboard is disabled. Then it should be configured to work only in the Sense laucher.

hugo_prado said:
I think it can be made, but remember: if the device "thinks" the keyboard is opened, the softkeyboard is disabled. Then it should be configured to work only in the Sense laucher.
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Yep you're right. I hadn't thought about that
In landscape mode if I refer to my personal use I'm more inclined to use the physical keyboard than the soft keyboard so I would anyway open the physical keyboard if I need to type something. But I don't know if other people have the same habit.

Mee too, If in landscape I always use the physical keyboard. The soft one uses a half of screen

Arc default keyboard

I did search but didn't get a clear picture
Sorry for the repost.
I want a keyboard where i can longpress the qwerty keys to type numbers instead of switching to number mode.
I saw both motorola milestone 2 and nexus S has such a keyboard. it seems it is part of the standard gingerbread keyboard.
Is it possible to enable this in the Arc or do I have to install 3rd party application?
Are there any recommended 3rd party apps for this?

There are so many keyboards availble in the market. Give it a try. Personnely I use Swype and it does more than what you need.
Check it out here.

Swype and SlideIt are good if u like the slide your finger to write. I highly recomend SwiftKey. After some days when it's learned your writing it's awesome and makes typing very fast

Smart Keyboard

I use this Keyboard from Android 2.3 and does the job

a good alternative keyboard is Thumb keyboard...I use it for my Dell Streak and I have used it on the arc also...if you select the 5' tablet option, ull get numbers directly without need to long press on letters or even switching to number mode..

Nimche said:
I use this Keyboard from Android 2.3 and does the job
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thanks this is perfect.

Swype. Best there is.

The stock keyboard sucks. really badly. I personally just recommend the stock 2.3 gingerbread keyboard, has multi touch and i can type super fast with it. Its free on the market as well, just search for gingerbread keyboard.

TRY THESE TWO, THESE ARE BEST out there:
1. FLEXT9
2. PERFECT KEYBORAD (I am using this)

I use swiftkey keyboard, it does the longpress thing, and also has the option to switch to numeric keyboard.

what beats me is why they replaced the stock andriod gingerbread keyboard with the default one which is just not as good.

Nimche said:
I use this Keyboard from Android 2.3 and does the job
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thanks for this bought the donate version

anyone notice the gingerbread keyboard in the market takes up more ram

Umlauts please
any recommendations for a keyboard which has umlauts in the layout (without long-press)

I'm speculating that all arch like mine have 3 keyboard by default, the default input, chinese and japanese keyboard.
to my suprise the chinese one had a few tricks on it. swipe to change querty <=> phone pad layout, long press, swipe down, smiley & symbol lock button, different landscape potrait layout.
down side: english chinese dict only, cannot use user word in phone pad with prediction on, don't think support multiple touch, vulnerable en/chinese button, prediction button use menu, not toggle.
definitely worth trying before investing keyboard app.

better keyboard works great

daveybaby said:
I use swiftkey keyboard, it does the longpress thing, and also has the option to switch to numeric keyboard.
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It is a great keyboard but the eats up quite a lot of memory...

I bought Swift even tough it has no umlauts in the layout. Fit's me very well except for that i still would prefer to have separate buttons for the umlauts.
I also tried "Smart Keyboard" which has äöü buttons but the completion is far from what swift does.
I also tried "Ultra Keyboard" looked nice but the one day trial was to short to decide if it is worth the money (especially as i already purchased swift at that time)
Currently I hope the upcoming Swift update will give us configurable layouts.

question re installing keypads
I tried installing the gingerbread keyboard mentioned above, but I cant get it to replace the arc kb. Do you have 2 b rooted?

Software behind the hardware keyboard

So I have found the keyboard to be somewhat fraustrating. Not because it is virtual, but because of the software behind it.
First of all, it is rather strange that you cannot set more than one keybaord. Essentially, the device can have two keyboards that you might regularly swap between: the hardware keyboard and the one screen keyboard one might use while in tablet mode. The hardware keyboard uses the autocorrect of the keyboard you have set as your software keyboard. You cannot set seperate keyboard engines for the hardware and software keyboard.
As I said, the autocorrect/engine behind the hardware keyboard is dependant on your choice of software keybaord. However, as far as I can tell, only the defualt TouchPal keyboard provides any autocorrect for the hardware keybaord. The stock android keyboard offers no autocorrect with the hardware keyboard.
On a related note, TouchPal is awful. The autocorrect works pretty badly and is basically very annoying to use. I won't bore you with the details, but things like autocorrecting to a new word when you go back to edit a mistake. This makes it almost unusable.
Also the touch pad is very bad. No two funger scrolling means that again, it is pretty much useless.
I think the Yoga Book is a great device in most respects. Its intersting that all of these problems relate to the software and could potentially be fixed by Lenovo or there may even be fixes out there now.
Has anyone found any solutions to these problems? Thanks, Liam

I completely agree with you and am having the same frustration with the software behind the keyboard. So far the best solution I have found is to use SwiftKey or Swiftkey Beta (not sure which is best yet). With a bit of tweaking you can get decent auto complete and auto correct using both the halo and on screen keyboard. Much better than Touchpal at least. A couple of issues I have found using Swiftkey and halo keyboard: 1) auto complete seems to turn off when resuming from sleep mode (tapping the keyboard button on the top row reactivates it) 2) in WhatsApp Tablet app, after pressing Enter to send a message, the next message gets double words - I. E. Auto correct adds to what you type, doesn't replace it.

I can confirm that switching to SwiftKey makes the hardware keyboard usable! I'm actually using the keyboard to type this now. Naturally, I'm making tons of mistakes but it is catching and correcting almost all of them!
Can confirm that SwiftKey easily switches between physical keyboard and on-screen keyboard when the physical keyboard is toggled on and off.
If anyone is still using the default software keyboard, switch now!!!

Thanks for the tip! This makes a big difference! Have either of you found a way to get auto capitalise to work? The setting is enabled but it doesn't do anythig.

My issue with SwiftKey is that there is no good ways to select a suggested word. You always have to click with your finger on the screen which completely ruins ten finger typing for my.
So I ended up with disabled word correction as it's faster to remove some mistyped words and type again, than to click on the screen.
How do you handle suggestions made by SwiftKey?

faeArai said:
My issue with SwiftKey is that there is no good ways to select a suggested word. You always have to click with your finger on the screen which completely ruins ten finger typing for my.
So I ended up with disabled word correction as it's faster to remove some mistyped words and type again, than to click on the screen.
How do you handle suggestions made by SwiftKey?
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I have found that SwiftKey enters the main suggested word when I press space. This is good for most of the time, but annoying when:
-I want to select a suggestion that is not the main suggested word (particularly a new word that it doesn't recognise)
-I want to add punctuation directly after the main suggested word (here, because I input the punctuation rather than pressing space, the suggested word is not entered)
I have certainly found using SwiftKey to be the best experience. It's quite a passive autocorrect that doesn't get in the way too much. I got so sick of TouchPal which really gets in your face with its incorrect predictions.
But still there is a lot of room for improvement. It's such a shame that it's terrible software that lets down this keyboard. In particular I don't understand why:
- Some keyboards (like the Google Keyboard) don't offer any correction or prediction when enabled. Does Android maybe treat the Halo keyboard as an external keyboard (which I suppose you wouldn't want predictive features for)?
- Keyboards that do offer prediction don't seem to respond to changes to their settings (I can't get SwiftKey to auto capitalise the first letter of a sentence for example). @thespinner02 mentioned tweaking with SwiftKey settings- I assume they meant for the onscreen keyboard because these settings don't do anything for the Halo keybaord.
I wonder whether there is a keyboard out there in the Play Store that works better with the Yoga Book. I'll try a few and let you guys know if I find one.

I tried several solutions but couldn't find anything good. Hardware keyboards are not that common on Android platform, I guess.

Even using Swiftkey I sometimes get different results depending on the app being used. Auto capitalise is working OK for me, in Word for example.
There are specific options in Swiftkey for Physical Keyboard: in settings, Typing, Voice & Other Input. In Physical keyboard section I have Autocorrect and Auto capitalize on. Everything else off.

thespinner02 said:
Even using Swiftkey I sometimes get different results depending on the app being used. Auto capitalise is working OK for me, in Word for example.
There are specific options in Swiftkey for Physical Keyboard: in settings, Typing, Voice & Other Input. In Physical keyboard section I have Autocorrect and Auto capitalize on. Everything else off.
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Thanks! I didn't notice that- smart spacing etc makes a massive difference!
Pretty much my only problem with SwiftKey now is that it sometimes creates its own weird textbook instead of typing directly into the text field. But that's not a massive problem.
Also I sometimes accidentally change input method. Maybe I'm using a keyboard shortcut by mistake?

thespinner02 said:
Even using Swiftkey I sometimes get different results depending on the app being used. Auto capitalise is working OK for me, in Word for example.
There are specific options in Swiftkey for Physical Keyboard: in settings, Typing, Voice & Other Input. In Physical keyboard section I have Autocorrect and Auto capitalize on. Everything else off.
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In settings for hardware keyword I get no harder key found?
Went into Swift settings in onscreen. How to get settings for Halo?

With Yoga Book in laptop mode. Settings / Language & input / SwiftKey Keyboard / Typing / Voice & Other Input

You also need to make sure 'show input method' is not enabled in the keyboard settings/selector popup.
Does anyone else experience a problem with SwiftKey where in some text fields your text goes into a little popup text box at the bottom of the screen as well as the intended text field? And then to get rid of the popup text box you have to tap 'next'. This occurs in the Facebook messenger app for example.
Any way to disable it?
It seems to do this when the text field is small, but other keyboards just expend the text field as you type. The popup text box it creates doesn't expand anyway, so it doesn't offer extra functionality and is just an annoyance.