is it just me or is the virtual keyboard really a pain to use most of the times, it's tedious and you need to be precise with what you're typing, i've used a lot of virtual keyboards and i find this to be one of the most problematic although still usable. i know that pr1.2 has already updated this but are there other tweaks that may be helpful?

Yes i agreed, very small key area. I usually keep pressing "Cap" instead of "a" and "B" or "Num key" instead of "space". Though most of the time i press "Y" instead of "t".

The space bar should have been placed closer to the right side for thump to use.

i find the touchscreen on other apps to be responsive, that's why i'm questioning the touch response on the virtual keyboard

Some theme caused a little lag on the VK as in my own experience. Some theme just unusable with VK. So be wise on which theme use are using. The best theme I think is Theme Blue sky. But take about nearly 5mins to apply the whole transitions configuration.

i only use the themes preloaded on the phone but already experienced this, just wanted to add installed vertsms, there seems to be no lag compared to the preloaded vk

I like the vertSMS but i don't see english keyboard in there. T9 is fine but keyboard is not english. Would be nice if it does autorotate.

ahh I see the keyboard is english but was too small lol so "W" became "invert N"

The solution is easy and its always best to use the virtual keyboard that comes with the operating system.now here's how you can make it work..I'll go through it step-wise..
1: Open application manager and go to uninstall
2: Uninstall MSCIM or SCIM that you have
3: Open X-Terminal
4: sudo gainroot
5: cd /etc/event.d(There's a space after 'cd')
6: ls
7: After 'ls',see if 'scim' is there in that list that comes up,if its there just remove it with the following command.I'll just write it as '8'
8: rm scim
Now type '9' and '10' exactly as i do,
9: /usr/bin/gtk-query-immodules-2.0
10: /etc/gtk-2.0/gtk.immodules
Even if '10' doesnt work,taking care of step '1' to '9' should make the virtual keyboard work.Let me know how it went..

Thanks bewrong, it was high time someone picked up that topic.

By "make it work", do you mean that it should be less of a pain to operate? What exactly does it do to the VK?
Or will it add arrow keys?

In my opinion (see here), any virtual keyboard needs arrow keys (like e.g. in Symbian), or at least one little tweak like the magnifying lens in iOS or enlarged markers like in some versions of Opera Mobile or Android - however, some device that makes it easy to place the cursor precisely in the right position!

I was hoping this could be addressed in the CSSU, but I believe someone said the Maemo VK is closed source (what the hell, Nokia?). But if so, it would be amazing for someone to write a replacement that works systemwide in both landscape and portrait - with arrow keys!
I've tried FastSMSEvo for that purpose, but IMO it takes way too long to pop up and the buttons are more inconveniently shaped for me than the stock VK...

Nope,it doesnt have direction keys.but i personally dont think we need direction keys.The virtual keyboard is complete with in itself,and doesnt need direction keys.Remember that we have it on a touch screen and we can just touch the screen to go wherever we wanna go.Besides,my post was meant to be for people who have some bug preventing them from using the virtual keyboard..Hope that clears it all up.cheers,God bless.