I finally caught up to all the posts in this thread, so some more replies:

This is a problem in whatever theme you're using. Well, whether or not the virtual keyboard opens can be considered a "bug" for FastSMSEvo, but the text not showing up is a theme issue. On a normal theme (I.E., like the default one) the text is white, and the background for it in the dialing pad of the phone app is black. For some reason, your theme seems to have both the normal, non-highlighted text, and that background, set to white, so you only see the text when you select it.

Don't ask me how to fix though, since I honestly don't know - themes have a BUNCH of different font-colors/font-sizes/font-types defined, and I never fiddled enough to figure out which ones are what.

I'm personally not sure. You typically have to manually swap Hildon Input Methods to get the vkb to switch at all - I'm not sure off the top of my head if FastSMSEvo puts itself in as a hildon-input-method, or if it just watches for the Hildon-Input-Method's activating dbus signal, and then kills hildon input method and summons the FastSMS keyboard.

Either way, it SHOULD be doable - make an internal setting for FastSMSEvo somewhere that the Evo part checks for, and if true, it launches itself, if false, it doesn't and allows the normal keyboard through. Depending on how it works, it might require rebooting/restarting-FastSMS+FastSMSEvo in order to have the settings change take effect, but it should be conceivable.


Thank you - I like it that people are finally starting to argue in favor of the "make everything possible an option" thing I've been saying all the time.

I think that you should be able to both click out of the vkb normally (just closing the vkb and committing the text), and have the green check to close vkb, commit the text, and function like an "enter"/"go" key.

This way if you're entering something in a browser password field, but there's some checkbox on the login form you want to click/unclick, you're not stuck with just the green check thing, which will then assume you want to press enter at the same time, or something.

Also, I know this already got addressed by realsportscars adding letter resizing and color changing options, But:

To be fair, a lot of the users probably like the fact that the keyboard conforms to theme. You might only use the vkb for one handed outside use, but I assume there are many others who don't - I use it outside a lot too, but for some reason I don't really have problems with seeing the letters - the screen on the N900 is transflective, so just tilting it right with the light should make it mostly legible... On the other hand, to each their own, so yes, I think it would be nice if the vkb had the option of using the system theme, or its own theme - but I also think you'd be hardpressed to code that seperately... you can, however, find dark themes with light buttons (like the default digital nature ["alpha"] theme).

I suggested this when this first came out because at first I didn't even realize that was a backspace key. I've been meaning to get around to opening up GIMP and editing together a red sideways arrow (with the eraser in/on the arrow), as a possible replacement icon, but I never got around to it as of yet...

Actually, I would love hover mode. Hover mode is IMMENSELY helpful for two reasons - one, your thumb/finger will cover the button you're pressing, almost guaranteed - it can be nice to see what button you just pressed, and could help with your visibility problem (if the "popping up" symbol-you-pressed-box is light or otherwise visible).

Second, and much more useful, if you press a wrong key (very easy to do on a touch screen), being able to slide your finger over and having the letter you want change accordingly is a massive convenience and time-efficiency improvement; without it, you have to let go of the key you pressed, backspace, and then press the right key again.

(For realsportscars: The coding difference should be reasonably slight, and so it shouldn't be too hard to implement - press, then don't "submit" any key press to the vkb's text area until a key has been released - so "press" simply makes all the keys ready to accept a hover-over, hovering over a key makes that key's button "light up", and then letting go submits the actual key press.)

And on to the replies to my last post:

Yep, I'm Russian. And I see. (I actually have looked at the Russian layout before, when you submitted it originally, I just didn't remember you had those special keys in there.)

So my apologies for that. I spoke a bit too soon there.