EDIT: Layout issue solved, shift issue remains. See post #5.
_______
Regular readers here know I'm a stylus addict and can't be convinced to use my fingers. Still, I try to use the thumb keyboard now just as an experiment. I found it's hard to use with the German layout because they moved one letter (ß) to the second tab. I read here that there's ways to re-configure the layout of the keyboard, but before I get my hands dirty:

Is there anybody out there who already changed the German layout?

Also, is there a way to get "shift" without doing this strike-up thing? A normal shift, not shift lock. Oh, and while we're at it: a "..." would be nice, too.

When you press the "shift" key (arrow up) or Fn-Key they are only used for the next key you press, then return to normal state. Only pressing them twice locks the mode.
But to be honest, i dont need "ß" that often, so i don't really see a problem there...

what shift or fn-keys are you talking about? theres no such keys on the thumb keybord.

With the thumb keyboard, for a caps lock you press '^abc' which then turns to 'vABC'. To do a shift, you drag the single letter you want capitalized upwards.

OK, I did get my hands dirty. Followed the instructions in this thread and created a new layout for the thumb keyboard that has the following changes:

Lower case, first tab: Key for ".,? " etc. is now smaller, additional space used for letter ß.

Second tab: Letter ß replaced by "…" - I often use this and find it very difficult to type as three "."s because you'd need to pause for ~1sec after each tap in order not to get "," or "?" after the first tap.

"Shift" is not very comfortable the way it is, but as things are, I'll not get used to the thumb keyboard any time soon and probably end my experiment to return to the regular stylus-VKB, anyway.

Aw, I should probably make custom russian layout cause there's no "+" symbol in it. It's extremely annoying.

ahhhhh sorry, i thought you were talking an N810 wwth the slide out keyboard....
That's why itss always useful to mention, which model you are talking about

The thumb keyboard is the same on both the N800 and the N810.

The term "thumb keyboard" is misleading as you usually use the thumbs for the slide out keyboard on the n810, too

Thumb keyboard = Full screen keyboard
Finger keyboard/Virtual keyboard = Half-screen keyboard
Hardware keyboard = N810 only

Interesting to see this. Had a discussion last week about the French layout too at https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=887 ...