Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Hello everyone. Instead of a whiner/hater thread i want to create a cheerer/lover thread. Did it happen to you that you read about a functionality of the N900 that you didn't know before, because you didn't bother to read the manual?

Well, I did and who knows, maybe there is also cool stuff you didn't know about. Things i have only discovered after some time:

- You can actually hang up (silence) an incoming call by hanging up (turning the phone upside down).

- You can open the keyboard, press a button and it brings up contacts beginning with that letter (Yepp i didn't know that before).

- You can use the built in jabber IM functionality to use the facebook chat (reheheeally cool)


Thats the first three things i can think of. Other gimmicks?

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Double tap the power button to lock the device is also cool. I use it all the time to lock it, whereas to unlock I generally 'slide to unlock' rather than use the dedicated switch.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

HA! Didn't know that either :) The thread already paid of for me :)

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I discovered that you can turn the N900 while in desktop in order to go to the phone app. I use it each time I wanna call someone.

EDIT: I've just remembered this: while writing a SMS you'll have to lock Fn, then press "Sym" to bring up <> characters and more.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

on web pages or in messages swipe into the screen from the left and a little mouse pointer appears, tap the button and you can select/copy text on web page and messages!

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

one thing i noticed today is the communication history for a contact. very nice. spans all communication methods.

one other thing i didnt 'get' until frecently is that you can have different preset sets of statuses so i have one for in the car which sets me offline for most except most critical accounts and i have one for home wifi where all accounts are set to available, etc. very handy.

i also just realized that while you are on home screen you can just start typing to look up contacts.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I usually don't read manuals, but the pages below helps... so, I haven't 'discovered' the phone per se.. :)

http://wiki.maemo.org/Category:Beginners
http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_Shortcuts_and_Gestures

For the flip phone to go to phone mode, you need to switch in on in the phone mode option first...

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

ctrl backspace to bring up the task switcher is nice.

ctrl shift x to bring up a terminal on the other hand is insanely awkward. Try it.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

put both thumbs of either side of the desktop and release 1 thumb for quick desktop transition

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

When in the web browser hit the back space key to go to the last page.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Oh! Thank you - very cool!

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Excellent!

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I may be wrong but does that mean that the touch screen is capable of multi-touch??

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I don't think so, just tricks it into thinking you've swiped across the desktop very quickly.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Open the camera door and it goes straight to the camera app. (That's an obvious one, but I like the thread and wanted to add to it.)

When in the browser, use the volume rocker switch to zoom in and out.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Surely it must be picking up 2 pressure signals?:confused:

I thought the n900 was incapable of multi-touch.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

When you touch the screen in multiple places i think it just gets interpreted as a single contact, the location of which depends on where your fingertips are and how much pressure they exert.

The device has no idea how many fingers there are however, or their individual locations, just the combined reading. At least that's how i think it works.

Try playing around with it

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Can anyone clear this up for us?

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

When you touch the screen in two places, the screen will interpret them as a single touch, in the average position of your two touches. So, touching the two edges of the screen is seen by the device as a single touch in the centre of the screen. Releasing one thumb is then seen as a (correct) single touch at the point where your remaining thumb is.
Thus, what the device sees by this is your touch swiping instantly from the centre of the screen to one edge, which swipes to that edge's desktop.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Something a lot of people don't seem to know is that pressing Ctrl+Shift+P snapshots the current screen to the images folder on the device.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

looks like hardware is able... don't know about patents...

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

There was an interesting hack to try and interpret multiple touches on the N8x0 but it was really a cheat using some simple math and limited gesturing.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Thanks for clearing that up,my main interest in this was regarding gaming with touch screen,it would give another good control option other than accelerometer, bluetooth joypad and keyboard. With the screen only accepting one touch at a time you have to use keyboard aswell and it makes holding the phone awkward and off balance.

@amh

i didnt disbelieve you i just wanted a second opinion.;)

thanks anyway:)

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

You select a gaming device w/out any touch of game list?

I bloody suspect another reason here...

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Don't worry, no offense taken.

I has wondered about the possibility of a hack to allow for some limited multitouch input. I know my laptop trackpad is single touch only strictly speaking, but it's possible to deduce the width of the input 'touch' and so distinguish two fingers from one (it still can't track independant positions however). This allows for two finger scrolling and the like.

The n900 has differerant hardware however so this approach may not work.

Er... appologies for straying off topic.

Press ctrl shift o to toggle portrait browsing in the inbuilt browser (activated by tilting the phone).

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Press CTRL+Baclspace to bring the background app windows

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

No other reason.

I have seen an iphone video which demonstrates quake 1 and driver and they are using multi-touch screen controls then when i read about flicking home screens fast by touching the left and right edges of the screen, i thought n900 tv out with need for speed on pcsx with multi-touch controls, that would be perfect.:)


lets get back on topic.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

hmm i cant seem to get this to work ive been trying it from the desktop with both the keyboard closed and open. am i missing something like a setting somewhere?

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Double tab the blue arrow to lock blue numbers and characters on the keypad. The same apply to the up arrow for all CAPS.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

This is really cool feature !!!!! I have been looking for this .. Thanks

This thread was really useful.

RR

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

use the cursor in converstations. same as web browser

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

flipping the phone from screen face up to face down snooze the alarm

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

From the contact list, pressing Ctrl + n allows you to add a new contact. Also, pressing the same buttons while on a web page brings up a fresh window.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

if someone sms you a phone number, you can start a phone call just by clicking over the number

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Pay $500 just for Quake? O...K...

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

nope. that is not possible as of now

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I liek this one.. it's new to me. i didnt think i would find anything new in this thread but here it is. what do ya know? thanks for this one. maybe i should pick up the manual one day

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

I've found that most standard keyboard shortcuts work; control s for save, control c for copy of highlighted text, control v for paste, etc.

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

This one isn't quite as easy, but it's pretty useful:
Open a terminal and type 'lshal | grep perc' to see exactly how much battery you have left (the tiny icon in the notification bar isn't very helpful).
Alternatively type 'lshal | grep batt' to see all the battery specs.
Note that you'll have to use Fn + Sym to type the '|', unless you've remapped the keyboard like me :)

Re: Gimmicks you might have missed on the N900
 

Or, to avoid hitting the switch, wipe screen clockwise/anticlockwise to zoom in/out.

bun