Database Develop

Thumb-friendly keyboard (PocketCM alternative)?

PocketCM is good, but I'm looking for something better. Even though PocketCM doesn't require a stylus, I'm still having a horrible time typing with it.
What I'm looking for is a thumb-friendly, on-screen keyboard that'll take advantage of predictive text to allow larger buttons. Something like the Blackberry Pearl keyboard (1 or 2 letters per key), or even the traditional phone pad (with 3-4 letter per key) would be enough.
Anyone have a suggestion?

cootek touchpal is the best i've tried.
its all over these forums should be easy to find

Johnston411 said:
cootek touchpal is the best i've tried.
its all over these forums should be easy to find
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Searching now.

Here's the link to Cootek Touchpal, its the best http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=334437

Did you spell it right? A search revealed nothing...
**EDIT
Got link, thanks!

Thanks for the recommendation! It works great!
Three questions:
1) Is this free until December, when I'll have to register it?
2) Is there any way to move the space button to the center (and why is it on the left in the first place?)
3) What is "precise" mode supposed to do?

Flapjack said:
Thanks for the recommendation! It works great!
Three questions:
1) Is this free until December, when I'll have to register it?
2) Is there any way to move the space button to the center (and why is it on the left in the first place?)
3) What is "precise" mode supposed to do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hold down the spacebar and drag to the middle and it'll move
precise mode appears to take away predictive text so you have to rely on finger slides to get the right characters.

gadgetluva said:
hold down the spacebar and drag to the middle and it'll move
precise mode appears to take away predictive text so you have to rely on finger slides to get the right characters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip. I tried precise mode after I posted an it was horrendous.
I'm still getting used to the program. There are a few things I don't like about it:
1) It takes up a lot of screen space. I would like to see a smaller key option
2) It doesn't always remove itself from the screen when you leave a text area
3) There is no way to spell words efficiently, for example:
I wanted to type "download". I enter "down", but as soon as I hit the "L" button, the letters "down" change to something else. You have to accept "down" as the word, backspace over the space that is automatically entered, then finish the word. PITA.

It's not for one thumb but Spb Full Screen keyboard is the best I've used. I actully don't use the Kaiser keyboard and type 3 times faster with Spb. Also try Tengo its a one thumb kb with big keys.

Touchpal is nice ive used it before.. Im still waiting for PocketCM to release a newer versions as i had some issues with the current version..
As for another one, I flashed my Tilt to the AKU cooked rom thats floating around the forums and there is actually a SIP that is a phone pad that supports T9 input and I find it very handy and works well for one handed operations!

Touchpal is the best in my opinion. Once you get the feel of it you can really type fast.
Yes a slight reduction in hight would be good. I suggest if they half the height of the top row which contains the various options we could benefit with some more screen real estate.

try to go to the htc asia website and download the official phone pad from HTC! I really find it useful!!

where can i get Spb Full Screen keyboard ?

gimini said:
where can i get Spb Full Screen keyboard ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here;
http://www.pocketgear.com/en_US/htm...Page=searchResults&id=prod5702026&sf=48190044

thank you. you guys are always so fast to help

If you buy the PRO version you can do that
This is the website:
http://www.cootek.com/index.html
srmz said:
Touchpal is the best in my opinion. Once you get the feel of it you can really type fast.
Yes a slight reduction in hight would be good. I suggest if they half the height of the top row which contains the various options we could benefit with some more screen real estate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

What about Resco Keyboard ?

Flapjack said:
Thanks for the tip. I tried precise mode after I posted an it was horrendous.
I'm still getting used to the program. There are a few things I don't like about
1) It takes up a lot of screen space. I would like to see a smaller key option
2) It doesn't always remove itself from the screen when you leave a text area
3) There is no way to spell words efficiently, for example:
I wanted to type "download". I enter "down", but as soon as I hit the "L" button, the letters "down" change to something else. You have to accept "down" as the word, backspace over the space that is automatically entered, then finish the word. PITA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah it is a slight learning curve, but once you get used to it it'll be the best sip out the there! I got the same thing when trying to spell download, but after spelling out by using the sliding function, it showed up everytime when using the predictive mode! it just takes a little getting used to!

Well, now that I've been using it for a while, I have several big problems. I don't know who to blame (M$ or Cootek), but here they are:
1) The program will only work if I use it in conjunction with sipchange. Once I do that, I cannot select any other keyboard. They come up in the choice list, but if I select them, nothing happens. So I'm stuck with it. If I'm using the stylus, I prefer the standard windows keyboard, which is why this is an issue
2) The program does not go down and stay down. Unlike the standard windows keyboard, TouchPal is always popping up in your face. It drives me nuts, as I only seem to actually need it 1/4 of the time it decides to pop up. It seems to take 2-3 times minimizing it for it to finally stay down... and when it does, it can pop up again for absolutely no reason.
3) It may be the most the most intuitive keyboard, but it's still not very "finger-friendly". I don't consider myself to have unusually large hands, but I still cannot reliably hit the right key every time, even when I'm careful. Another thing it will do is detect a capital letter (diagonal motion) when I very clearly touched it without a swipe. Not sure why this is...
I'm still in search of something better....
princeasi said:
yeah it is a slight learning curve, but once you get used to it it'll be the best sip out the there! I got the same thing when trying to spell download, but after spelling out by using the sliding function, it showed up everytime when using the predictive mode! it just takes a little getting used to!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

gabriel31337 said:
What about Resco Keyboard ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious about the same thing. I love the Fx mode that the Resco keyboards offer.

What about handwriting recognition?

The X1 manual talks about handwriting recognition but I can't seem to make it work. There's a dearth of info on this feature in the manual. Coming from a P990i I expect that when I'm in an input field and tap the screen with my stylus I should get the cursor and the < on the right so I can scribble but no. Is it wishful thinking or do I need to learn new tricks?

You need to learn slightly new tricks.
When in an input mode you should have a keyboard icon with an arrow. Click on the arrow and change the method to Letter Recognizer.
You now have three boxes along the bottom. Capitals go in the first, lowercase in the second, third does numbers. Very similar to the P990i with Above, Below and On the arrow.
Some letters will be different but you'll learn them after time.
There are two offer method, transcriber which allows you to write full words on the screen, but I find this is harder as you make errors half way through and then have to delete complete words.
Or Block Recognizer which is similar to the first method, but the letter inputs were more different to the old UIQ phones.

Do you have a Swedish ROM? In that case you don't have letter recognizer installed by default! You can find it with a simple google search!

Thanks artesea.
artesea said:
You need to learn slightly new tricks.
When in an input mode you should have a keyboard icon with an arrow. Click on the arrow and change the method to Letter Recognizer.
You now have three boxes along the bottom. Capitals go in the first, lowercase in the second, third does numbers. Very similar to the P990i with Above, Below and On the arrow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does take some learning. Just tried it and it's quite good. I have to learn to use the spaces for the three modes. It was quite straight forward on the UIQ as the "scratching" went where you wanted to write. In time I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

Can you please more specific? I can't able to work that..
Thank you!

jithsc said:
Can you please more specific? I can't able to work that..
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using a stock ROM? Most custom ROMs disable/remove Letter Recognizer by default

text conversation window nightmare

Hey all,
Got my new diamond. Love it to bits. Only one bit that's started to drive me round the bend. There must be a solution somewhere.....
I was quite pleased to see the text message conversation feature - you know the one where you can type beneath a text you've recieved to reply and reffer to the previous text as you're doing so, also if you scroll up you'll see your whole convo with that contact. Nice feature....
However:
The window for replying in is SO SMALL that I can't actually read what I'm typing. I get almost the lenght of a whole letter in it so i can kind of read a few words but scrolling is impossible.
The scroll up and down arrows are right next to each other.
It's highly impractical and almost impossible to use. Worst when keyboard and T9 are activated.
Anyone know how to fix this?
I tried clicking on the black divider line between the original message and the reply you're typing and dragging it up.
No luck....
All help greatfully recieved (doubtless I'm missing something?)

There is a solution (have you searched?)
You need to edit thread_sms.htm in the windows folder. You'll need to use Total Commander to edit the file because it's a protected ROM file.

Or just use the newer, smaller keyboards that are just as practical and take less of the screen.

nuke1 said:
Or just use the newer, smaller keyboards that are just as practical and take less of the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure which keyboards you mean but it won't help since the reply section of the page is a fixed height. Altering it so that you can see more than one line of the reply can be very useful.
On the subject of keyboards, I want to recommend TouchPal (again) - not only is the keypad resizable (by dragging), it has better T9 input and the word candidates don't stick up above the top of the keyboard. This means the window resizing works properly and it doesn't have the bug on tapping the screen when selecting a candidate in Opera.

Davey101 said:
Not sure which keyboards you mean...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he's referring to new the keyboard in the 2.00.421.1 Diamond ROM image. pistonripper has cooked a custom, lightweight version.

Davey101 said:
There is a solution (have you searched?)
You need to edit thread_sms.htm in the windows folder. You'll need to use Total Commander to edit the file because it's a protected ROM file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep searched google repeatedly before I came here. Figured google would turn results up from here but hey, could just be my dyslexia. Thanks for the help. I'll see what I can find on here about total commander and thread_sms.htm to figure it out.
Wish me luck

Thanks a lot guys! That solved it I REALLY appreciate the help.
If anyone else has the same problem it's as the guys said: google 'total commander pda' get the .cab file from their site (you want the Pocket PC one obviously).
Install it by popping it on your diamond and clicking it on file explorer.
Then use the file menu to search for 'thread_sms.htm'
When it shows up click the edit button (first icon, the one to the right of the word 'show' bit of paper with a pen next to it).
I changed the height on one of the lines contained 'composesubject' and width 98% from 35 up to 70. Saved and went back into sms.
Tada.
Beutiful three lines.
Thanks again to all who helped and search for thread_sms.htm on this site if you need more help as a lot of the guys have solved it.
Lastly for the google folks here are a few words that might help them find this:
diamond sms window screen too small one line tiny conversation text message reply can't read

Nice one

Auto Suggestions Pop-Up

I am sorry if this has been answered before, but I can't find the answer anywhere. How can I change the auto suggestions from the one that's in the screenshot to the older pop-up version?

Have you looked under start-->settings-->personal-->input? Once here select the input method you wish to use and customize it all the way. This should inlcude adding your own words to the dictionary/pop up suggestions etc.

I don't know the popup you mean but it sounds to me like it belongs to an older keyboard. You need to install that keyboard, if you can find a VGA version.
Failing that you could try another keyboard like Resco or TouchPal to see how you get on. I think the T9 system in TouchPal is great, a whole other level better than the HTC keyboards.

I was wondering how to get the word suggestions to the one in this screenshot.

Ths thread explains it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=445959
short version: disable T9 and use a different keyboard...

Word suggestions...
datzent83 said:
I was wondering how to get the word suggestions to the one in this screenshot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't use that one with HTC's keyboards. That belongs to Microsofts' built-in SIP's. I find HTC's much better and quicker to use. If you've only just changed from the 'old' word suggestions from Microsoft, maybe you need a bit more time to get used to them. Other than that, you'll have to use Microsoft SIP's instead of HTC's.
I'm sure if there was a way to resolve your issue, some wiz-kid here would have already done it

I forgot to mention this, but I am not use HTC keyboards. I am using PocketCM Keyboard v0.20.

I figured it out thanks to Steve in this form post #21: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=425405
Here is the suggestion which works!
found this in another thread
changes for auto complete
IMPORTANT: previously be sure that HKLM\Software\Tegic\eT9\XT9SupportMSSip has a value of 0.
Simply change these two registry keys under:
HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control\layouts\e 0010409
Ime File : \windows\xt9ime.dll change to Ime File :\windows\compime.dll
and
Layout Text : XT9 IME change to Layout Text : COMP IME
And soft reset.
suggest words in a drop down list as in WM6

Norwegian Apple Wireless Keyboard settings and how to make your own

I have a Norwegian Samsung Galaxy Tab and Norwegian Apple Wireless Keyboard.
Norwegian letters "æøå" on bluetooth keyboards are not supported out-of-the-box, so I searched forums without much luck. I found some helpful threads and decided to solve the problem and share the solution. Others can make their own modified keyboard settings quite easily using the same methods.
Using "adb logcat" I found that the keyboard layout files used were the "Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kcm.bin" and "Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl" (might not be the same on other devices - CHECK!). I had the "adb logcat" going while connecting and disconnecting the keyboard, so that I could see what keyboard files were used by the apple keyboard. I made a backup of these and started modifying them, with success.
DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU DESTROY YOUR DEVICE WITH THIS!
I offer no guarantee this will work for everybody!
HOW TO USE:
"Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kcm.bin" --> /system/usr/keychars/
"Broadcom_Bluetooth_HID.kl" --> /system/usr/keylayout/
I did this simply by copying the files with the app "Super Manager".
Make backup first. My backups are included just in case.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN KEYBOARD SETTINGS:
I used a hex editor called UltraEdit on pc to change some symbols in the .kcm.bin-file, and I used the "KeyTest.apk" from github to make out all the scancodes and used them when editing the .kl-layout file in Notepad on the phone.
NB! If you use the hex editor, make sure you always change one symbol at a time and always do backups for each little change. Whenever I did some change that the system didn't like, it would turn to using the "qwerty.kcm.bin" as default, then I could use the backup to make it work again.
This is my first attempt of a sort of contribution to this great forum after
using it for years. Hope that others can use what I have learn't to make
their own settings. I have attached my original and edited settings files,
and a picture of the keyboard with scancodes.

I would be so happy if you could provide us with a swedish layout aswell as I am not so into programming!

mikaveikko said:
I would be so happy if you could provide us with a swedish layout aswell as I am not so into programming!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. . .. . .

Danish would be nice aswell.
Atleast its the same letters and not all that weird swedish stuff... ;-D
Martin
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App

Nice find, qsarklam!
Could you post some info which hex key is which character, and how to identify individual buttons in the hex editor?

mikaveikko said:
I would be so happy if you could provide us with a swedish layout aswell as I am not so into programming!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 ...........

I have exactly the same issue, need though the German layout. Can anyone from you help me with this?
I would also appreciate the Swedish layout so count me in that one aswell.
Thanks!!!

Spanish anyone?
Same issue, but in Spanish. The wireless Apple Spanish-ISO keyboard mostly works, even the Ñ, but some letters are not right and accented characters like áéíóú don't work. Also, the caps lock key LED doesn't light.
I tried using HexEditor on my rooted Samsung Galaxy Tab to edit the binaries but I can't figure out what maps to what so I'm stuck.
It's just so frustrating to have that nice keyboard sitting around. Would be a waste to have to buy and carry two keyboards, one for the iPhone and another one for the Tab.
To make matters more complicated, I like running the Galaxy Tab's Android UI in English, and I have a Mac so I can't run the suggested bin editors for Windows.
One would think that with the OS X being Unix-based and Android being Linux-based it should be as easy as copying a keyboard layout file from the Mac (or the iPhone) to the Tab, but it seems there is no such luck.

mikaveikko said:
I would be so happy if you could provide us with a swedish layout aswell as I am not so into programming!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This thread is great! Anyone who has made a Swedish layout for the Apple Wireless Keyboard yet?

... I have attached my original and edited settings files,
and a picture of the keyboard with scancodes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got one apple wireless keyboard also, and i'm remapping it. Does your Fn button works? How did you manage to find the scancodes from the F1, F2 ... keys?
Are you able pass the lockscreen with the keyboard? without touching the screen i mean.

For those who are not rooted or just don't want to mess with a hexeditor I've got an app that takes care of this and allready supports a lot of different layouts:
http://www.apedroid.com/android-applications/external-keyboard-helper