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?
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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.
I'm really having problems getting use to this keyboard. Does anyone have any suggestions on using it a better way or a different keyboard.
Any help!!!
Marc
swype - slideit
my personal favorites
From my other post:
"I would say that the best typing tweak is to calibrate the screen the way you naturally using it.
So, if your finger touches the screen under some angle while you type, calibrate that. (think of a cross as a letter and touch it under the same angle).
If you type with two hands, calibrate the left side with the left hand and vice-versa.)"
As reported back, this significantly improves typing experience in some cases.
Hi All,
I've recently received my Nexus 7, and I'm very impressed with it. I do however have a nagging problem.
When typing a URL it's common to make a mistake, and when I do it's a complete pain to go back and edit. There doesn't seem to be any cursor keys on the standard keyboard. I know you can move a little cursor arrow about, but I have big sausage fingers, so this is painfully tricky.
I have also installed Swype, which I can switch to quickly from the standard keyboard, and it does have cursor keys. Unfortunately it also seems to fight with the standard dictionary and there is no quick single button way of swapping back to standard without going into settings.
So does anyone know how to get cursor keys on the standard keyboard?
I understand your pain, but there is no way to "get" arrows on the stock keyboard.
I'm sure someone could modify the stock keyboard, but what I usually do is tap on the URL.
This usually summons a BIG blue peg, which is a nice way of moving the cursor.
If not you can also try "SwiftKey 3 Keyboard" it has arrows, and is known for its self learning dictionary.
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchtype.swiftkey.tablet.trial&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLnRvdWNodHlwZS5zd2lmdGtleS50YWJsZXQudHJpYWwiXQ..
(Sorry can't link because I don't have 10 posts yet, but you can copy and past :laugh
If you do use Swiftkey download the phone version if you want arrow keys. When you install it will suggest that you use the tablet version - ignore it as for some reason you can't have the arrow keys in the tablet version. The option for arrow keys can be found under the Theme section of the settings.
Also,Ultra keyboard has arrow keys.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.binarybulge.android.apps.keyboard.full&hl=en
Davrat said:
If you do use Swiftkey download the phone version if you want arrow keys. When you install it will suggest that you use the tablet version - ignore it as for some reason you can't have the arrow keys in the tablet version. The option for arrow keys can be found under the Theme section of the settings.
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Click to collapse
Actually you can have keyboard arrows in the tablet version of swiftkey 3, but unfortunately they are hidden. To get them you need to select "123" and then "{& =". Yeah, I know, slap forehead time!
nexus 7 table pc
My Nexus 7 is almost always in my hand, surfing the web, researching articles, reading an ebook, or otherwise consuming content from the web. It is particularly useful for those purposes as I have detailed in the past. I am getting asked if the Nexus 7 would be useful for creating content with an external keyboard. My answer is absolutely not.
I have a reputation for using tablets in my work by using them with keyboards to write thousands of words. They are very good at that as my working history proves, but only to a point.
The Nexus 7 will never be good for writing as I do, even with a good external keyboard. That's due to one factor: size. While the 7-inch display makes the Nexus 7 perfect for a portable companion, it is too limiting for use as a laptop replacement.
See related:
i had thumb keyboard from my previous galaxy note, so i just loaded that up on my nexus 7. its my favourite keyboard due the sheer level of customisability. it has arrow keys for your convenience as well.
Hi:
I use Hacker's keyboard and wouldn't be without its cursor keys.
Tom
There is no doubt that this keyboard is cool. However, I would like to recommend one more choice. The more choices, the better for us. It's an Aluminum Case with Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Google Nexus 7 which serves as a best partner for my Nexus 7 in many ways.It is sold at $39.99 only. Hope my recommendation helps.
im using the stock samsung keyboard on my att s4 for texting inside google hangouts. i got the autocorrect feture a while back where it gives the sweeping replacement arrow on the left of the suggestions box then the two other suggested words on the center and right boxes, one day the arrow disappeared and the whole system acted more like the apple set up and i had three suggestions words and no arrow and the spacebar would auto replace with a spelling correction. now out of nowhere it has switched back to the sweeping arrow again. what am i missing here? i liked the three word setup much more. is this a setting im missing somehow of what??? or some sort of updated happening behind the scenes??
AT&T Galaxy i337 S4 MK2 rooted.
Did not like the original samsung s4 keyboard but that is my own thought as I was so used to using the Google Keyboard on Nexus 4
I currently use the SwiftKey beta keyboard app for my S4 and it working great
Before that I had the Google Keyboard which you can download from Playstore and give it a try
hey thanks for the reply, and sorry im so late getting back. thanks for the tip on the different keyboards. ive tried the google keyboard which i really like the simplicity of but i really like the dedicated number row on the stock s4 board. ive also tried the swift beta and its so close to perfect but ive really gotten used to the long press punctuation on the s4 also. i also dont care for the way i have to swype for the question mark on the swift beta keyboard.
my original question is a wierd one though and i dont think i asked it well. i think my issue is more with the auto correct feature than they keyboard. there is an arrow that shows up to dismiss the autocorrected word. that disappeared for a while and then it came back. i kinda liked the three word replacement better than the two words and the arrow. i was just curious why it switched and then switched back. and if i could choose it somehow.
I'm loving the v20 so far and I wanted to keep the stock keyboard, but I've been forced to switch to Google Keyboard.
Problem: when I type something out and I make a mistake, the center suggested word is always the same word as my error and the word to the left is where the correctly spelled word is, therefore it never drops in when I press space bar and the original misspelled word remains.
For example, let's say I text "hapened." Instead of the suggested word in the center being "happened" therefore dropping in and correcting my error with the press of the space key, it's found on the left side of the three suggestions and "hapened" is found in the center, therefore making me have to press the left, correctly spelled suggested word in order to fix it.
I couldn't find any settings to fix the problem. Am I missing something? I really liked the LG keyboard. If anyone knows anything, let me know. Thanks.
This is my only reason for not using it. Seems like a fatal issue for a keyboard.
LG keyboard is retarded. Just install Google keyboard and call it a day.
justthefacts said:
LG keyboard is retarded. Just install Google keyboard and call it a day.
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Bingo. I tried to like it... But nope.
I have to agree. I think I installed Google Keyboard within 15 minutes after first boot up.
It is sad, but I installed the Google keyboard as well. I'm not a swype typer, but I got used to using the Swype keyboard on my Note Edge; but the Play Store doesn't list me as a Swype keyboard owner, so I'd have to buy it if I wanted it on my V20. I don't know that I am that enamored of it...