Virtual Keyboard


rasczak

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Joined
May 6, 2008
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Hi, this is mi first post.

I've been with an eye on Pandora since I saw it in a spanish news site. I've read almost everything on the net about this handheld and I'm actually in love...

I'll purchase one of them, sure, as soon as I can.

I'm from Spain and I'm sure that Pandora will have so many fans in this country and others. There's a little (really little) problem, not big and it would not change that Pandora is a really interesting device, but there's some special keys on "latin" keyboard that obviously don't exist on Pandora. I think a nice and easy solution could be to add a soft that for adding a virtual on-touchscreen keyboard, that could be used with a different sets of keys, according to different languages, etc.

I think it could be also a nice add for default software in Pandora.

What do you think about?
 
Surely it'd be simpler just to define the kayboard layout for your language? This is, I'm told, very straightforward to do in Linux - the most complicated it is is editing a text file.

And more likely than not, given that Pandora will be being sold to many many different nationalities, I'd guess there will be some way to do it in the main interface wth no editing required, at least for major languages.
 
Mmm, It's not as simple as it, because of Pandora doesn't have enought keys to take all characters in my language. We have a letter "ñ" (n~) that seems impossible to add to Pandora's keyboard without deleting some more important key.

Also, I think that, for some porpouses like text editing, should be interesting to have access to a virtual keyboard for use a full size character set. Or not?
 
rasczak said:
Mmm, It's not as simple as it, because of Pandora doesn't have enought keys to take all characters in my language. We have a letter "ñ" (n~) that seems impossible to add to Pandora's keyboard without deleting some more important key.

Also, I think that, for some porpouses like text editing, should be interesting to have access to a virtual keyboard for use a full size character set. Or not?
i don't remember the oldier topic which speak of that

but if i remember well , the solution is with the touch 'Function' with touch 'N'
 
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Ok. I didn't know those facts, and it's ok.

But I still think that a virtual keyboard would be an interesting add that also adds more functionality to touchscreen. He he.
 
I've talked with the people at Dasur, they are working on a Linux version of their SlideIt & ThumbKey software. They are much better than traditional on screen keyboards. In fact, most of their users are faster on their software than on a physical full sized keyboard! It's already available in at least three languages (English, French, and Hebrew), and is customizable for other languages.

A video demonstration of SlideIt - for stylus
A video demonstration of ThumbKey - for thumbs
 
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chad78 said:
I've talked with the people at Dasur, they are working on a Linux version of their SlideIt & ThumbKey software. They are much better than traditional on screen keyboards. In fact, most of their users are faster on their software than on a physical full sized keyboard! It's already available in at least three languages (English, French, and Hebrew), and is customizable for other languages.

A video demonstration of SlideIt - for stylus
A video demonstration of ThumbKey - for thumbs



Um.

Call me Mr Cynic, but whenever I see or hear the words "special algorithms" in a text imputting comtext, my first thought always is: "What are the odds those 'special algorithms' include Dutch (or insert your language of choice here)?"

Up until now, the answer has practically universally been: "A snowball's in hell." (exceptions, for Dutch that is: the Nokia Itablets and -- due to Paul Guyot's efforts -- the Newton)
 
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Karel Jansens said:
Call me Mr Cynic, but whenever I see or hear the words "special algorithms" in a text imputting comtext, my first thought always is: "What are the odds those 'special algorithms' include Dutch (or insert your language of choice here)?"

Up until now, the answer has practically universally been: "A snowball's in hell." (exceptions, for Dutch that is: the Nokia Itablets and -- due to Paul Guyot's efforts -- the Newton)
Well, Mr. Cynic, the great thing about the Pandora is, in theory at least, anything that can run on an Nokia "Itablet" as you call them, can run on a Pandora.

I don't know about Dutch specifically, but this particular software that I linked to is coming out of Israel. So, the fact that it is *not* from the monolingual centric United States, or even a place where English is the native language of the the majority of people, gives a better probability than if it was written in St Louis.
 
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chad78 said:
Karel Jansens said:
Call me Mr Cynic, but whenever I see or hear the words "special algorithms" in a text imputting comtext, my first thought always is: "What are the odds those 'special algorithms' include Dutch (or insert your language of choice here)?"

Up until now, the answer has practically universally been: "A snowball's in hell." (exceptions, for Dutch that is: the Nokia Itablets and -- due to Paul Guyot's efforts -- the Newton)
Well, Mr. Cynic, the great thing about the Pandora is, in theory at least, anything that can run on an Nokia "Itablet" as you call them, can run on a Pandora.

I don't know about Dutch specifically, but this particular software that I linked to is coming out of Israel. So, the fact that it is *not* from the monolingual centric United States, or even a place where English is the native language of the the majority of people, gives a better probability than if it was written in St Louis.


i love concept of the slideit, but the fact it is only 'now' for few languages, but it is interesting, and sometimes give few money for good product don't annoy me :)

Maybe with letters in different disposition we could have universal without analysis word ?

for example :
CODE

B C D F G J L
H Y A E I O U R
P Q M N S T V
W X Z K




and with the graffiti implemented in PALib ( Lib for NDS) will be good
 
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chad78 said:
Well, Mr. Cynic, the great thing about the Pandora is, in theory at least, anything that can run on an Nokia "Itablet" as you call them, can run on a Pandora.

I don't know about Dutch specifically, but this particular software that I linked to is coming out of Israel. So, the fact that it is *not* from the monolingual centric United States, or even a place where English is the native language of the the majority of people, gives a better probability than if it was written in St Louis.
Word prediction is actually pretty good on the Nokia Itablets, at least for the handful of languages that I know well enough to pretend to be able to make a cursory judgment, but this Israeli software works for only a couple of languages and I could find no reference to future updates on the number of languages supported.

Also, isn't this a bit overkill for a device that already has a physical keyboard?
 
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Karel Jansens said:
Also, isn't this a bit overkill for a device that already has a physical keyboard?
Possibly, but IMHO, no. The Pandora's keyboard is very limited. There's zero punctunction keys (they are fn-shifts of normal keys) The number keys are not attached to the rest of the keyboard. Not to mention it's uber small...

The Nokia Tablets come with keyboards (at least the n810 and up do), and yet, they still have a software keyboard. Plus, I have a nearly full sized blue tooth keyboard for my N800, and I still use the touch screen most of the time.

And, as this thread has pointed out - typing in any language other than English on such a limited keyboard will be next to impossible.

But, let me point out, the software I linked to is commercial software - commercial software that currently, despite assurances they are working on it, is only available for Windows Mobile. This is 99.999999% most likely never be included with the Pandora out of the box. This will be somethin gyou have to install yourself. So - if you don't want it, don't buy it.

Also, if the company's site isn't just outright lying, many people were able to "type" *FASTER" on their software than on a full sized QWERTY keyboard that they've been using for years.
 
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chad78 said:
Possibly, but IMHO, no. The Pandora's keyboard is very limited. There's zero punctunction keys (they are fn-shifts of normal keys) The number keys are not attached to the rest of the keyboard. Not to mention it's uber small...

The Nokia Tablets come with keyboards (at least the n810 and up do), and yet, they still have a software keyboard. Plus, I have a nearly full sized blue tooth keyboard for my N800, and I still use the touch screen most of the time.

And, as this thread has pointed out - typing in any language other than English on such a limited keyboard will be next to impossible.

But, let me point out, the software I linked to is commercial software - commercial software that currently, despite assurances they are working on it, is only available for Windows Mobile. This is 99.999999% most likely never be included with the Pandora out of the box. This will be somethin gyou have to install yourself. So - if you don't want it, don't buy it.

Also, if the company's site isn't just outright lying, many people were able to "type" *FASTER" on their software than on a full sized QWERTY keyboard that they've been using for years.
I'm wondering if the A-B-X-Y buttons couldn't be remapped to accent deadkeys. You could have an accent aigu, accent grave, accent circonflex and c-cedille for any number of accented letters, never requiring more than two keystrokes.

Or maybe use one of those buttons as a second function key and add all those accented letters as a second (actually: third) decal on the keys. A bit like on those Igo, Stowaway keyboards?
 
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Karel Jansens said:
I'm wondering if the A-B-X-Y buttons couldn't be remapped to accent deadkeys. You could have an accent aigu, accent grave, accent circonflex and c-cedille for any number of accented letters, never requiring more than two keystrokes.

Or maybe use one of those buttons as a second function key and add all those accented letters as a second (actually: third) decal on the keys. A bit like on those Igo, Stowaway keyboards?
Good idea :)

For example :

X button + E : é
Y button + E : è

but for A button and B - button not sure they are lot use of validate or cancel actions .....
 
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Arialia said:
Karel Jansens said:
I'm wondering if the A-B-X-Y buttons couldn't be remapped to accent deadkeys. You could have an accent aigu, accent grave, accent circonflex and c-cedille for any number of accented letters, never requiring more than two keystrokes.

Or maybe use one of those buttons as a second function key and add all those accented letters as a second (actually: third) decal on the keys. A bit like on those Igo, Stowaway keyboards?
Good idea :)

For example :

X button + E : é
Y button + E : è

but for A button and B - button not sure they are lot use of validate or cancel actions .....

How about for text editors you use X/Y to cycle the accent for the last character? Type an e, then tap a few times to change the accent to the one you want. ;) That would allow an unlimited* number of accents per character, rather than just four*.
 
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