Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Download 'shortcutd', you can assign CTRL+SHIFT+R to something else. I have it so a long half-press of the camera button does that trick.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

yea I know that, but I mean implement it into a custom shortcut so I dont have to launch conversations then rotate............

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

erm... i use shortcutd in order to quickly shift it into portrait. i don't really use the prox sensor because it is too sensitive and just keeps toggling rotations every now and then.. so i use the camkey long press for it

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

oh... noticed too.. i was just fiddling with apt-get for a moment,

i had the hardware keyboard up and using it... till i clicked on the function key, then clicked on the ctrl key for symbol... and the old symbol icons from the old virtual keyboard came up instead of from fastsms.

:)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Twimgo, Tweego, Khweeteur, Facebrick

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

This is ok...symbol kb (blue arrow + ctrl) is not replaced by fastsms...If I understood well...

@Zekahz
Thank you...I will try soon

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Would it be possible to swap the prev and next buttons on the alphanumerical keyboard, the t9 nokias all have it this way and its taking me a while to adjust lol.

Also when i add new words in the fastsms app i cant use them in the vkb

thanks for all your work

DONATE PEOPLE

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Donated! Keep up the really good work!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Quick note re: some post a page or so back: For me, X-Term enters text inconsistently (meaning, it always doesn't show text already there, but sometimes it enters the new text, sometimes it doesn't). That's probably why the above poster says it doesn't work at all. Because sometimes it takes a few tries, and I can't even see a completely coherent pattern for how/why it works/doesn't work in X-Terminal. Just sometimes it adds the text, sometimes it doesn't.

Now, more current replies/ideas:

I don't know about swapping buttons around, but it's certainly an option - however, I say if you're going to swap buttons, it's probably good to implement settings to configure whether those buttons are swapped at the end-user level.

Also, I'm not sure how hildon works, so maybe I have to request this at the Hildon level, but it would be great if you could keep the top left button visible/press-able when in the vkb. Meaning, the one that you use to 'back out' of a window and zoom out to the Task Switcher or whatever it's called. (The same one where the key to go to the app menu is, depending on what you have in the foreground/background.)

The reason I'm not sure if this is feasible is if you could leave a VKB instance open in one program/window, and navigate to another window with text boxes, I'm not sure if Hildon's input method and respective APIs are built to accept multiple VKBs at once. It's possible it simply can only remember one vkb instance at the same time, so opening a new vkb in another window would lose what the other one's trying to enter, or something like that. But if this vkb can pull off remembering multiple instances of itself open at once, that would be a significant strength in my opinion over the original (on top of the qwerty/alphanumeric + portrait/landscape superiority it already has) - being able to go from one window, to, say, quickly read some web page you're referencing (but don't want to copy-paste) without having to close the vkb, do the window switching, and then open the vkb again in the window you just closed it in, would be far more comfortable/fluent from a usability stand point.

Also, I just noticed another possibility for a couple extra buttons in the qwerty vkb, if you really have any you wish to add, and one I would recommend for the portrait:

The alpha-numeric/qwerty, Abc/abc/ABC, and smartwrite on-off selecting button, could be reserved for only one of the qwerty keyboard's buttons - meaning, right now you have shift and the number/symbol keys - the one that either capitalizes/shifts the letters/symbols visible, and the one that takes you to the numbers/symbols characters. Great so far. Now, during normal typing, does everyone really want to be able to switch between alphanumeric and qwerty, Abc/abc/ABC modes, etc, all the time? I'd presume not so often that it has to be on every one of the qwerty pages. So you could actually make the mode-switching button + shift key be something else, and mode-switching + 123 key be something else. POSSIBLY mode-switching + shift + 123 key, and maybe even work in the accent letters key for an extra couple of combinations for more keys. Don't know what you'd do with all of those, but the point is the option is there. (Also, I personally think you could swap space and enter keys - the space gets used more often than the enter key anyway, by the average user, but currently it's aligned slightly to the right, which means left/right-hand use is forced to be different - I'm ambidextrous, and use either hand for most tasks interchangeably, so I tend to notice this a bit more, and I know left-handed people are typically inconvenienced by such things anyway. But it's not a major issue, and I'd leave it low on your to-do list unless you agree and can change it in like 5 seconds.)

Now, my recommendation for alphanumeric - if this isn't already implemented in some way that I don't know about - is include the new-line (enter) character as the third character on the 0 key. That way you have space, 0, enter. Because right now I can't find an enter key in alpha-numeric, and that seems like a natural place to put it. Actually, you can probably arrange the key 'order' as space, enter, 0, (in case the order determines what key is used for a button when you switch the alphanumeric keyboard to just numbers). The only difficulty I see is with smart-type - but I suspect it should be possible to add a dictionary entry, that says that 2 (or whatever number you feel is appropriate, but 2 is probably fine) spaces is to be converted to a new-line character when in smart-type. That way smart-type auto-converts two spaces to an enter, non-smart-type has enter as the second character in the 0 key, so two quick 0s yield the enter key, and you don't have to lose any more space to new buttons.

Hope some of the above are useful.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

No, because the rotate doesn't work on the desktop

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

I fail to see how that has to do anything.

All it takes is making something auto-set the rotation-enabled flag to on. Some daemon/script should be able to do it, if you look at how Shortcutd does it. Could be pretty resource heavy though - but if you made it do nothing than respond to dbus signals, you could make it happen. I mean really, if you just combined the source code that allows shortcutd to enable rotation with the source code of rotate daemon, it could be done.

At any rate, I'm kinda assuming/hoping the full-scale portrait-ization of Hildon will happen soon, now that MohammadAG fixed the Qt bug that made it a problem and submitted the fix upstream. And then we won't have to worry about finding ways to enable auto-rotate on everything.

Actually, you can probably do it by using a Queen Beecon Widget which launches Conversations, then uses dbus to enable auto rotate on the just launched app. Or dbus scripts that listens to the launch of Conversations on dbus? One of those.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

is it possible to add swype like movements for faster typing on the QWERTY & Alphanumberic keyboards??

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Curious: Did you try swype? From what I heard it's really not that great.

On another note: Something I was going to see if I could work on eventually, or suggest for way down the line, is something Qwo/8Pen-like as a third 'keyboard' type. IE, you have Alphanumeric, Qwerty, and then "Circular"/"Swirling" (I'd use one of those words, because 8Pen is a specific proprietary product, and Qwo is open source, but presumably it wouldn't be a direct port. Also, that style of input method deserves a generic name too.)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

I used it on my girlfriend's N8. I'd say it is that great, i'd love it on the N900

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Cool. Good to know. That said, if gesture support is added at some point, a swype interface would be doable if realsportscars of someone else wrote the code. I'm thinking the circular/swirl input method is even better for touch screen use personally though. But if both can be implemented, that'd be great. I'm all for giving users choices.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

I have tried it on NITDroid and can say it really works very well...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

@Mentalist but not only:
easy buttons swapping is an improvement that i'd like to add but not in a close future. I think that it isn't too hard to add, but first I have to fix a lot of things. You have also to consider that if I ever add a "swype" option, buttons swap could be a problem.
I don't know how it works exactly but I had a couple ideas to do something similar (swype is patented but I'm quite sure that original ibm's study about this kind of input not are).
But again before I have to fix other things, my main target is now the "commit problem" :)
Newline and capitalization doesn't exists in alphanumeric kb but I'm telling my idea so people can say something: "prev" button becomes "shift" and its behavior is the following:
One press will capitalize only one character (usefull for name), double-press will hold the shift untill you press shift again.
In this way i can remove "ABC" and "Abc" and only leave "abc". Thanks to new space i can add a new entry in this menu: "symbol" and add newline in this layout.
I like your idea of putting it as third choice in "0" button but this introduces some problem in management of FastWrite that it is already quite complicated.

Hildon doesn't support multiple instance of kb so I can't do what you ask. hildon-input-method only handle one "application target" at a time and, by the way, manage of multiple instance could be very hard...

About adding a feature like ctrl+shift+r: I don't want do this (if ever possible) because kb must be only a kb :)

@MaddogG: Thank you a lot for your donation!Grazie :D

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Well, the way I imagined it, if you ever added 'swype-like' input, you could make it a 'third' key layout. Meaning, now you have qwerty, and through that one button, you can toggle it to Alphanumeric. Now imagine you have a third entry in there called Swype, that keeps unchangeable button positions. (That said, I'm sure with enough thought, swype-like input can be written that checks what button is in what position when the vkb is loaded. But that would be a major, major PITA to code.) So you have QWERTY, AlphaNum, "Swype-like", and "Circular/Swirl" - in theory. Again, I honestly think your keyboard is good as is. I don't expect anything so radically new Swype or the circular input methods - I intend on eventually getting good enough to contribute such code myself, but that is a slow process indeed.

If you get around to doing it I'll be happy to share my ideas on making it happen. I can't write the code itself, but I'm decent enough at logic, and can understand programming without necessarily being able to word it in the coding-language-appropriate terminology.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. (You could probably also just split the next/previous buttons into two each, couldn't you? They seem wide enough to still be usable if split into two buttons, even in portrait mode. That way everyone who likes prev/next gets to keep those buttons, but you also get an extra button, and one for the shift key.) Either way though I do like that idea. It certainly gives you even more room for symbols, although I suggest waiting to see if other people are okay with losing the Next/Prev buttons - I don't use them so far, but I'm sure there are people who like them.

I really need to get off my *** and learn how to recode Hildon, then. (It's in C, I believe?) And yes, I realize how it could he hard. You have to make sure each 'instance' is properly targeting the right application, that it can store the text correctly, etc. But on the other hand, I mean, web browsers do it all the time - they manage to store a bunch of text boxes on different web pages and don't run into collisions. So I am pretty confident it's doable. I just need to learn how to code in that language and get good at it to the point where it would be even feasible for me to try.

I agree. It's doable, but it does not belong in the vkb code. It can be released in a separate package if need be, but it shouldn't be a part of the keyboard. When you meld projects like that, things get messy and inconvenient.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

The problem with losed commit is exactly due to this...vkb targets itself xD
I can solve setting the input field as read-only but this hide text cursor...really bad!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Well, I was rambling about something completely different, but that's quite informative. Thank you. How long does the input field have to stay read-only? Can't it be set to be become read/write after the vkb closes? Or for that moment between pressing 'out' of the vkb and the finishing of the text-committing?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Perhaps you give me the solution :D
I'm going to try...

EDIT: unlucky not, it doesn't works...but perhaps I found what I can do

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Unfortunate. Well, I wish you luck with whatever other solutions you come up with.

Also, quick side-note: When you were talking about making the "prev" button a shift key, I thought you meant the blue arrows are the top, the one that moves you to the previous word, not the prev/next buttons at the bottom that change between dictionary entries for that vkb.

I think if you're going to replace a button with shift, it should be one of the blue arrows - because sometimes it's a LOT easier to cycle with the prev key to the word/symbol you want then to loop around with just "next". It's especially useful for the 1 key, since it has all the symbols, which makes selecting the right key much easier, since if you accidentally miss it you don't have to loop all the way back.

Where-as the blue arrows don't really need to be used that much because you can change cursor position by clicking on the actual text.

This was why I was so for the idea - because I thought you meant the blue next/prev word keys, not the next/prev keys at the bottom in the same row as the 0.

However, if you're going with the 'split the key' route, then life is good and the next/prev keys are equally suitable for splitting.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

is this possible;
using microb, if I press the internet-icon I get an page with my favorites, below I can type my search(google) but I can only type, the enter has to come from the hardware kb. Is it possible to make the enter starting the search?

If i'm in messages, and want to write an sms and tap the empty field, the app comes up and turns the whole conversationsapp in portrait.
So there must be a way to have conversationsapp in portrait/auto orient.
Can you achive that realsports?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Press enter in vkb and then "close" it...so you don't have to use HW kb :)

Do you mean a way to autorotate the conversation always, without open vkb???

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

yes, just support of potrait in conversations.

thx 4 the help.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

This was just covered.

It has also been covered countless times on countless threads. It breaks down like this:

1. Yes it's DOABLE.
2. There is a difference between the keyboard rotating, and any other app rotating. That difference is that the keyboard is programmed TO auto-rotate. Conversations is programmed to not auto-rotate (it's programmed to be rotate-able, but it doesn't turn on set to auto-rotate, so another program has to set it.)
3. But realsportscars doesn't want to do that as part of his vkb, because his keyboard is just that - a keyboard.
4. Why can't we just reprogram Conversations? Because the source is closed, which means you either start editing/disassembling/whatever the binaries, or you clone Conversations completely. (THe former is of dubious legality, the latter would be difficult to pull off to say the least. I'm sure it'll get done eventually, though.)

So yeah. I myself suggested a page or so ago how you can do it. DBus scripts + wait until a Conversations-has-been-launched call over DBus + send the same call that Shortcutd sends when it enables rotation. (Which you can look at Shortcutd source code for.)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Conversations can be made to auto-rotate. I've done it.

Hint: maemo-launcher booster plugin.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Okay, so I've searched, and I'm mostly just finding references by you to making maemo-launcher booster plugins for various tasks. Can you point me at a page, wiki, talk, or whatever, that actually elaborates?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Would that be the maemo-launcher equivalent of inserting a GtkModule in your normal GTK+ equivalent executable?

Just curious as I've been playing with maemo-summoner and new maemo-launcher sessions to play with things on my N800...

With the rotation thing though, a ported Devilspie that's aware of the rotation Atoms seems nicer to me

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Here's some code to look at. booster_null.c is the generic wrapper plugin, the other file is the app specific plugin. I'll post more details this weekend if need be.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

No, it's a hack. maemo-launcher forks a process for a newly launched app, but before it execs main it makes a child process init call to all the booster plugins. Inject anything you want.

The rotation stuff in the code I posted is specific to Maemo 5 and the n900, but since we're in-process of a GTK app, let your imagination run wild.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

pardon if I may ask but has been answered but how come after installing this all I type on my custom keyboard doesn't get inputted to the main app? eg. conversations
I can type yes but when i close the keyboard none of the texts gets inputted/saved it's just plain blank. I tried pressing the enter key but it just creates a new line so now I can't type using vkb if I install this

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Do you have rebooted the phone after install? If Not, please do it...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

how about making the vkb appear qwerty during landscape and t9 automatically when going portrait? is that plausible?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Yes...it will be done in future...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

@realsportscar
Yes I have rebooted the phone a couple of times but of no effect.
BTW i'm using the fastsmsevo_0.1-6_armel.deb version

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

What about fastsms version? is this the last available in devel (0.5-3) ?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Yes i'm also using that specific version from extras devel

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

How often do you notice a "lost commit"? Always or not?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] FastSMSEvo: system virtual keyboard T9/Qwerty
 

Uhm 100%... It always fail
BTW i reflashed my device and redownload both fastsms and evo still restoring backup :D
Don't worry fastsms wasn't the reason why i reflashed :D