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[CLOSED/G2] How's the Virtual Keyboard

So, the stock G1 virtual keyboard sucked compared to the HTC_IME keyboard. How's the virtual keyboard on the G2? Is there a calibration tool?
Enquiring minds want to know
8-9 hours and counting down until my G2 arrives...

Mine arrived with Swype set as the default keyboard. It's usable, but takes some getting used to with the whole finger-gymnastics thing. It also accepts typing like a standard on-screen keyboard... I'm finding that a bit easier to use than on the G1 mostly due to the larger screen size. I don't see a way to calibrate it in the settings, but it's got a couple of options for adjusting frequency of the word choice window and speed vs. accuracy.

Yea in using the default Swype. Its pretty good, just takes some time to get use to. I find myself being a letter off somethings. But the better screen makes vk way better then the g1 u git more space
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Thanks all, I'd forgotten about the fact that swype was the default. I'm interested in trying it. It's supposed to be quick and easy once you get used to it.

Is the regular android keyboard available?

Yes, you can disable Swype and use the standard Android keyboard, in the Language & Keyboard settings. Long-tapping a text field to change the input method also lets you switch between 'em on the fly if you have both enabled (default settings have 'em both enabled).

I use the stock keyboard over swype. The froyo keyboard if you have never used it is ten times better than 1.6. They continue to improve the keyboard and honestly I don't need another keyboard besides swype (I use it from time to time). Trust me you won't have issues with it. You can drag up and the numbers and symbols will show up for quick selection without having to enter symbol key.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

legendary1022 said:
I use the stock keyboard over swype. The froyo keyboard if you have never used it is ten times better than 1.6. They continue to improve the keyboard and honestly I don't need another keyboard besides swype (I use it from time to time). Trust me you won't have issues with it. You can drag up and the numbers and symbols will show up for quick selection without having to enter symbol key.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Sweet, I've never used the Froyo vk. I've practically never used the stock pre-Froyo because it was so bad and the HTC was so much better. I'm looking forward to both the Froyo standard and the swype.
Thanks
My phone is coming in today. Sometimes the UPS guy arrives before I get home (4:30) but usually they show up between 5 and 7pm. If it's not there when I get home, I suspect I'm going to pace back and forth staring at the front door like a tiger at the zoo.

Blur keyboard

Hate to say it but I love the blur keyboard. I tried gingerbread keyboard for a while and at first hated it but after a few days got used to it. As soon as I went back to blur I fell in love within an hour.
My question is, how do I permanently make the smiley button next to the space bar, into the enter key. Sometimes it is enter and sometimes it is a smiley.
Does anyone else like the blur keyboard as much as I do? I also like the toned down intensity of the haptic feedback on the blur board as well.
My true favorite is the swype keyboard but it doesn't auto correct
Sent from my Atrix using XDA App

seh6183 said:
Hate to say it but I love the blur keyboard. I tried gingerbread keyboard for a while and at first hated it but after a few days got used to it. As soon as I went back to blur I fell in love within an hour.
My question is, how do I permanently make the smiley button next to the space bar, into the enter key. Sometimes it is enter and sometimes it is a smiley.
Does anyone else like the blur keyboard as much as I do? I also like the toned down intensity of the haptic feedback on the blur board as well.
My true favorite is the swype keyboard but it doesn't auto correct
Sent from my Atrix using XDA App
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I don't know the answer to your question, but I love that keyboard too. it's the best I have ever typed on. I can type very fast with minimal mistake.

I love the keyboard.

Swype > *

The Motorola Multitouch Keyboard isn't bad, better than Sense. Don't have experience with Gingerbread Keyboard on Atrix, though it was nice on my brothers Nexus One.

seh6183 said:
Hate to say it but I love the blur keyboard. I tried gingerbread keyboard for a while and at first hated it but after a few days got used to it. As soon as I went back to blur I fell in love within an hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? I like the overall presentation (big keys, etc.) but I find that the blur multitouch keyboard doesn't really feel like multitouch to me. If I type really fast where sometimes my presses overlap, it often misses some of the letters I typed, even though they flashed above the keys onscreen. They just didn't actually appear in the textbox I'm typing in.
For example, type the word "what" as fast as you absolutely can, with very light taps (in portrait mode). I find that more often than not, I get the word "hat" or other misspellings. I didn't miss the key; the popup shows that it was typed, but it just didn't appear.
I hate to say it, but I learned my virtual keyboard typing on the iPhone and iPod Touch and those devices never lost some of my presses, despite fast, overlapping presses.
I tested many, many keyboards from the market, and you know what? The Gingerbread keyboard and Better Keyboard 8 are really the only ones that could handle really fast light typing. I also like Swype though, and use the beta version. It's quite good when you just want to do some one hand typing.

maledyris said:
Really? I like the overall presentation (big keys, etc.) but I find that the blur multitouch keyboard doesn't really feel like multitouch to me. If I type really fast where sometimes my presses overlap, it often misses some of the letters I typed, even though they flashed above the keys onscreen. They just didn't actually appear in the textbox I'm typing in.
For example, type the word "what" as fast as you absolutely can, with very light taps (in portrait mode). I find that more often than not, I get the word "hat" or other misspellings. I didn't miss the key; the popup shows that it was typed, but it just didn't appear.
I hate to say it, but I learned my virtual keyboard typing on the iPhone and iPod Touch and those devices never lost some of my presses, despite fast, overlapping presses.
I tested many, many keyboards from the market, and you know what? The Gingerbread keyboard and Better Keyboard 8 are really the only ones that could handle really fast light typing. I also like Swype though, and use the beta version. It's quite good when you just want to do some one hand typing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right about the blur keyboard missing inputs I never typed fast enough to notice it. I'm trying better keyboard 8 right now and like it but its glitched and keeps asking me to activate it, so I can't enter the options menu for the board.
Where can I get the swype beta? I have swype now, how do I know that I don't already have the swype beta? Also does the swype beta have auto correct? Not suggest but correct.
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So I got beta swype and while it functions better I don't nearly like the skin as much. Also it doesn't auto correct only auto suggests properly spelled words.
Also I do like better keyboard 8 but am unable to fully test it as I can not properly "enable" it to enter the settings menu.
Sent from my Atrix using XDA App

Try smart keyboard plus. Hands down the most customizabld keybaord ever and by far the most responsive. I love the fact that I am able to resize the keyboard all I want and I'm also able to disable full screen landscape mode which is the biggest failure of all keyboards on android
Sent from my MotoAtrix

seven2099 said:
Try smart keyboard plus. Hands down the most customizabld keybaord ever and by far the most responsive. I love the fact that I am able to resize the keyboard all I want and I'm also able to disable full screen landscape mode which is the biggest failure of all keyboards on android
Sent from my MotoAtrix
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Click to collapse
Wow. This thing is great! True multi touch; it never misses a single word no matter how fast I type. Also I am able to even customize the length of the vibration for haptic which I love because the blur board had a very short, very light feedback and I am able to recreate that with this new board. And the skinning is just icing on the cake. Thank you!!!
Sent from my Atrix using XDA App

seven2099 said:
Try smart keyboard plus. Hands down the most customizabld keybaord ever and by far the most responsive. I love the fact that I am able to resize the keyboard all I want and I'm also able to disable full screen landscape mode which is the biggest failure of all keyboards on android
Sent from my MotoAtrix
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Click to collapse
Nice! Don't know how I missed this one. Better Keyboard has pretty much all the features mentioned EXCEPT it doesn't auto correct anywhere near as well as this one does. I guess I'll have to add this to my collection...
By the way, what skin are you guys using? I just found "Rapid" for Better Keyboard which looks really nice. Similar to the stock Blur keyboard, but better! It works just as well with Smart Keyboard too.

maledyris said:
Nice! Don't know how I missed this one. Better Keyboard has pretty much all the features mentioned EXCEPT it doesn't auto correct anywhere near as well as this one does. I guess I'll have to add this to my collection...
By the way, what skin are you guys using? I just found "Rapid" for Better Keyboard which looks really nice. Similar to the stock Blur keyboard, but better! It works just as well with Smart Keyboard too.
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Click to collapse
I'm using the stock HTC one that comes with the app
Sent from my Atrix using XDA App

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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Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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?

[Q] Slow keyboard auto-correct?

Hi all, my first post on here. I picked up my S4 last Friday (UK on Vodafone) and I've been loving it ever since, its a massive step forwards from my old HTC Desire.
Anyway, the only thing that's really bugging me so far is the stock keyboard auto-correct. I've got it set-up to auto-correct when I hit the space bar but I'm running into a problem, I'm typing too fast for the keyboard. For example I type "the" and hit space, yet auto-correct is still offering me "th" as it hasn't caught up so instead of "the" I get it auto-corrected to "th". If I slow down a little it works fine but this is missing the point.
I know I can switch the keyboard so SwiftKey, which I had on the HTC, but before I do that I wondered if there's a way to speed up the auto-correct?

can you tell me how you set it up to auto correct?
i came from the htc one and really liked the keyboard and the fact that it would auto correct most things but i find with the s4 that it gives me the a correct spelling of the word in blue above the keys but does not seem to insert it into the text ive written.
thanks

Yeah where's this option
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

Settings, Language and Input, Samsung keyboard settings, enable Predictive Text then pick the Autoreplacement option

A mate has just tried using the "swipe" like input method on his S4, it makes the auto-correct lag issue look simple. Its so bad that its effectively unusable for quick text entry!

I've found it sometimes to be SLOW. as in , i type a whole word like KEYBOARD, and the predictive text didn't keep up and it replaced my word with "."
then sometimes, i've found the keyboard to be super QUICK!. not sure what the hell is going on.
This sounds like a bug. how do we notify samsung?
clearing the customized learning makes it REALLY QUICK, but then you lose your common words.
even you type a word in like KEYBOARD carefully and slowly it will replace it with its default word...
stupid really. if i typed it in slower and careful, i dont want it to be replaced.

+++ SwiftKey +++

sadekmefti said:
+++ SwiftKey +++
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Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm back on SwiftKey now and its much faster. But I like the Samsung keyboard, specifically having the numbers as separate keys above the QWERTY 'board. Oh well, I guess I'll have to see if the software update has made any difference

robpc said:
Settings, Language and Input, Samsung keyboard settings, enable Predictive Text then pick the Autoreplacement option
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Click to collapse
I have no autoreplacement option. AT&T SGS4.

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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.