Keyboard mods - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So let me start out by saying I like the default JB keyboard. However it is missing 2 crucial things for me. A tab button and the ability to long press keys. Has there been any modding going on yet for the keyboard?

Long press keys work fine
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

pixelchemist said:
Long press keys work fine
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I miss all the extra long-press characters, too. It used to be the top row could be long-pressed for numbers and stuff, and other keys for other symbols. I never use the accents anyway, though I think it is good that Google includes them.
I really like the new keyboard, too. I still use thumb keyboard instead, so I can have escape, tab, page up and page down keys, but I prefer how the default keyboard provides various punctuation. It's easy to get to the - and _ symbols, apostrophe and comma have their own keys, and so on.
The new look is very clean, though.

ldrn said:
I miss all the extra long-press characters, too. It used to be the top row could be long-pressed for numbers and stuff, and other keys for other symbols. I never use the accents anyway, though I think it is good that Google includes them.
I really like the new keyboard, too. I still use thumb keyboard instead, so I can have escape, tab, page up and page down keys, but I prefer how the default keyboard provides various punctuation. It's easy to get to the - and _ symbols, apostrophe and comma have their own keys, and so on.
The new look is very clean, though.
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I'm going to try and use the keyboard from the cm9 rom on the touchpad since it has more options for long press keys and a tab button. Hopefully it installs.

Long press is working great on 4.1.1 keyboard. My question is if there is a way to enable popup on key press. Not only I like that feature but it helps me type also. Thanks!

Hacker's Keyboard from the Play Store will give you either the Gingerbread style keyboard or a full 5 row keyboard.
Both the Gingerbread and 5 row keyboard have the long-press feature on the number keys, with the full set of symbols. It also has popup keys.
The 5 row is a full keyboard with arrow keys, ESC, CTL, ALT, FN keys, etc. Works great in terminal emulator, it's essential with vi.
I use the 4 row Gingerbread in portrait mode and the 5 row in landscape. That's the default, but you can change it.
The only thing I don't like in Hacker's Keyboard is the click sound - it is much louder than the stock click. Probably easy to fix by swapping out a resource or sound file, but I haven't looked.

Related

Athena keyboard

How is the keyboard tactile feedback? Can you type without quickly getting your fingers tired? Is it backlit?
Are number keys intelligent
unlike Jasjar/ Universal I do not see any dedicated number keys at the top row. Are the number keys intelligent to automatically identify number fields or do I have to press some function or blue key etc to activate numbers?
manu407 said:
How is the keyboard tactile feedback? Can you type without quickly getting your fingers tired? Is it backlit?
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No backlit
Heijdemann said:
No backlit
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Does it mean don't have light on keyboard? How to type in the dark?
cornelius said:
Does it mean don't have light on keyboard? How to type in the dark?
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That's very surprising...Not backlit!?!? However, when you consider that it has a whopping 5" screen glaring down onto the keyboard, you may also see that there is no point in backlighting the keys.
After using the keyboard, I can say that not having backlit is not an issue at all as there is already a hugh torchlight (the screen) shinning on it. The feel and feedback is also acceptable. The biggest weakness is the way keys are set out.
1. there should be a row of number key in addition to the keypad style layout.
2. the numeric keypad should have followed the computer and calculator style (with 7 8 9 on top and 123 at the bottom) instead of mobile phone format (where 123 is on top and 789 is at the bottom). The commonly used spreadsheet/calculator symbols such as + - * / ( ) are normally used at the sakme time. The should be activated by the same special function key. The should be laid out to be as logically as possible rather than all over the place as currently the case.
3. The most common punctuation marks should be accessable without having to first press shift or special function key abd should be tyoed by the right hand. All other punctuation marks and special characters should have been activated in the sane way as capital letters.i.e. via the shift key. In other word, when the shift key is pressed, we should be able to access all symbols and capital letters. It is radiculos to have to keep switching between pressing the shift key and special function key now.
4. the letter Z must go directly below A to have any chance of fast typing. All keyboards are done that way except this one.
In my next posting, I'll show my preferred keyboard layout.
This might help. Lots of opinions on the keyboard, and some suggestions on alternatives.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=303399

How do you press Tab?

With the on screen keyboard?
In ConnectBot, this is accomplished by pressing the trackball followed by the letter i.
daveid said:
In ConnectBot, this is accomplished by pressing the trackball followed by the letter i.
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This is just for that app though, correct?
Is there a way to do it in any text field?
The leaked betas of the swype keyboard had a fourth keyboard with tab/up/down/left/right/page up/page down/etc. However, that seems to have been removed.
Just depends on the keyboard.
muncheese said:
The leaked betas of the swype keyboard had a fourth keyboard with tab/up/down/left/right/page up/page down/etc. However, that seems to have been removed.
Just depends on the keyboard.
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Is there any way to input a Tab into any text field with the Standard Android keyboard or the HTC keyboard ?
Swype actually still has the tab key.
If you swype from the info key to the sym key you'll get the functions keyboard which includes tab, up/down/ctrl/etc.
muncheese said:
Swype actually still has the tab key.
If you swype from the info key to the sym key you'll get the functions keyboard which includes tab, up/down/ctrl/etc.
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HAH!
WOW! How in the HECK did you find that out??
I did the entire tutorial and it never mentioned that. Swipe from the Swype key to the SYM key... How in the hell do they expect people to know that???
Anyway, I am mostly wanting this for the terminal to autocomplete file names. Unfortunately, swype isn't too useful in terminals... Switching keyboards back and forth is a pain (I used Swype for a few weeks, didn't like it).
I'll do this for now, but if anyone knows a way to do it with the normal keyboard, I'm still interested in that information!
[Edit]: Just tested it in terminal. Yeah damn that is annoying.
cd... tap cd on screen... few letters... swype to sym... tab... abc... few letters... swype to sym... tab, FFFFFFF

Swype - Temp disable swyping?

Just wondering if there is a quick way to disable the swyping on the swype keyboard.
Love Swype but sometimes a std keyboard would be easier and I find I am changing back to the HTC keyboard for the odd message and then back again.
What swype needs is a quick way to turnoff the swype funtion and go Dumb mode.
Problem is if I type to quickly it starts picking it up as swypes
Thanks
Check settings, menu, all settings, personal, input.
Tought you could change it over there.
Thanks for the response however not really worried about switching between swype and another keyboard. More hoping there is a quick way to keep swype but make it faster as a normal keypad.
Some of my messages (Txt or Email) Swype is a bit of a hinderance. Trying to touch (tap tap) is painfully slow and so is switching between keyboards. (Bottom center. Tap slightly to the right will prompt for type of keyboard).
Eg entering in information and funny names I would like to tap one of the sype buttons and swype function is temporaily disabled. I then type what I need to (tap tap tap) then tap the key again and the swype function is reenbled and I carry on (swype swiggle swishe)
I feel your pain. Unfortunately, there isn't an option in Swype to turn of the "swyping" as you eloquently put it.
Hope they come out with a newer build that could do that and one where you can access the EDITING options with just one button press.
i simply press the small arrow next to the keyboard icon on the bottom of screen , and toggle to the normal, htc regular keyboard
edit: sorry, overlooked the op's main concern, please ignore
leepriestenator said:
I feel your pain. Unfortunately, there isn't an option in Swype to turn of the "swyping" as you eloquently put it.
Hope they come out with a newer build that could do that and one where you can access the EDITING options with just one button press.
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Hey, quick tip
you can quickly access the Editing options by swyping from the 'swype key' to the 'SYM key'

Cursor Madness...

I have a question on how to make this phone better... I've never used the iPhone really, other than to jailbreak it for my fiancee. Now that I have the Vibrant, I noticed ridiculously difficult it is to place your cursor in a particular spot. You can't use a stylus, there's no "magnifying glass" like the iPhone has, and there are no arrow buttons on the on-screen keyboard (as there was on my HTC Touch Pro 2). Basically, it'll take me 5-6 taps (or more) to get the cursor where I want it.
Is there any app or hack that can fix this?
If you are using samsung keyboard, then keep pressing the "123" button until more controls shows up, theres cursor control.
You can flash or wait for froyo release it comes with a cursor
Thanks to both of you. The 123 option is a PITA, but it's something. Good to know that Froyo is gonna have a cursor. Thank goodness....
Flapjack said:
Thanks to both of you. The 123 option is a PITA, but it's something. Good to know that Froyo is gonna have a cursor. Thank goodness....
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I couldn't the 123 option to work. When I press the 123 button, I get four pages of symbols... no directional cursor movements. What am I doing wrong?
If you are using the Swype keyboard, drag your finger from the Swype info button (bottom left corner) to the SYM key (next one to the right). Several cursor control options there, plus a few other handy items.
Also, if you didn't know, dragging from the Swype info button to the "F" key will switch the keyboard into a number keypad.
Flapjack said:
I couldn't the 123 option to work. When I press the 123 button, I get four pages of symbols... no directional cursor movements. What am I doing wrong?
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You need to hold 123, not just click it.
BronzedDroid said:
You need to hold 123, not just click it.
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Awesome. Thanks for the help. It's exactly what I needed. Will hold me off until Froyo.
Alternativelly you can use the HTC_IME (which is the HTC keyboard) and set the volume buttons to work as up and down. Pretty handy when you want the cursor to skip a few characters. Though indeed the lack of cursor buttons always visible on the keyboard is kind of irritating especially if you come from an HTC.
stormrain said:
Alternativelly you can use the HTC_IME (which is the HTC keyboard) and set the volume buttons to work as up and down. Pretty handy when you want the cursor to skip a few characters. Though indeed the lack of cursor buttons always visible on the keyboard is kind of irritating especially if you come from an HTC.
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I actually went through the process of installing the HTC keyboard, which I loved on my Touch Pro 2. It was laggy as hell and basically unusable. I also did not notice any directional arrows.
I've been meaning to try that keyboard again, since I did the one-touch lag fix. I'll do that right now.
**EDIT**
I can't find the option to use the volume buttons to move the cursor. It's also nowhere near as fast as the Samsung keyboard. Not sure why, but I have to seriously slow down my typing to get it to recognize each key press individually. I was hoping it would be better once I did the lag fix. I guess it's a separate issue...
Flapjack said:
I actually went through the process of installing the HTC keyboard, which I loved on my Touch Pro 2. It was laggy as hell and basically unusable. I also did not notice any directional arrows.
I've been meaning to try that keyboard again, since I did the one-touch lag fix. I'll do that right now.
**EDIT**
I can't find the option to use the volume buttons to move the cursor. It's also nowhere near as fast as the Samsung keyboard. Not sure why, but I have to seriously slow down my typing to get it to recognize each key press individually. I was hoping it would be better once I did the lag fix. I guess it's a separate issue...
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Hmmm I do not have any lag issues with the keyboard.
Have you tried Calibrating it? That option is in Settings (within the program, activated by long pressing the language toggle key)>Text Input>Calibration tool.
Unfortunatelly, indeed, there are no directional arrows in the layout.
The option to set the volume buttons is in Settings (again, within the keyboard itself)>User Interface>Volume Keys.
EDIT: I don't really have any opinion about the default samsung keyboard as it does not support my language (go figure lol) so I have never used it.

How much do you use the slide out keyboard?

So I've had mine for a few weeks now, and I can still count the number of times I've used the physical keyboard on one hand lol. I'm not even sure why. It's fine when I use it, but the onscreen one is just -so- fast and responsive. I can type much much faster with the onscreen one.
On the flip side I like that it's there just in case I need it for some reason (needing to type something really specific, etc).
But yeah, how much do you use it?
anything more than a few words and i whip out the physical board. even if the screen view is locked to portrait.
weatherx said:
anything more than a few words and i whip out the physical board. even if the screen view is locked to portrait.
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same here, mainly because for some reason the fact that my phone has a smiley button is hilarious to me. Also, just a little fun fact, the keyboard backlight will turn on when you click on an area to enter text, but otherwise stays off. Nifty, ehhh?
I use my keyboard A LOT. I never entered text using the on screen keyboard, that is, until my screen light decided to start cutting off whenever I slid it out. Now I have to use the on screen.
Me too... I use it almost every day. Just can't seem to get the hang of the soft keyboard.
I use it every day, almost every single time i type something. it is just faster and more accurate.
Anything more than 5 words and I use the keyboard
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
i use my often as well for sms, sometime use voice to sms too, no cutout
Anyone care to tell me how to type a star (*) with the hard keyboard? I don't seem to find it anywhere....
Thanks
resol341 said:
Anyone care to tell me how to type a star (*) with the hard keyboard? I don't seem to find it anywhere....
Thanks
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You have to use the symbol key and then touch the right arrow key on the onscreen keyboard that pops up to get to it - pretty much the same way you would with the onscreen keyboard (&123 key then right arrow)
By the way, in case some don't know this, you can enter the blue (fn) function characters just by holding the physical key just a bit longer. Saves us from having to fiddle with the fn button everytime.
cmphone said:
You have to use the symbol key and then touch the right arrow key on the onscreen keyboard that pops up to get to it - pretty much the same way you would with the onscreen keyboard (&123 key then right arrow)
By the way, in case some don't know this, you can enter the blue (fn) function characters just by holding the physical key just a bit longer. Saves us from having to fiddle with the fn button everytime.
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Thanks a lot!
Best!
I also found something today. Long pressing the sym can switch input method. In my case, I can switch between English and Chinese. I might just be too retarded to find out earlier ~

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