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Hi,
I'd like to buy an Atom, but I cannot find any real feedback on how usable the device is with one hand, lacking hardware button to map on the WM5 softkeys.
Can someone report if it is possible (and easy) to press the on-screen softkeys with one's thumb?
I'd like also answers from Wizard/Prophet owners, that can compare the usability of hardware vs on-screen buttons (but please do not participate in the poll).
arg0: you can press the softkeys on the screen, and if you have dedicated hardware keys you can of course press those. If you can't manually assign the softkeys to other non-dedicated hardware keys, tell me about it and I'll knock some thing up to sort it.
V
vijay555 said:
arg0: you can press the softkeys on the screen, and if you have dedicated hardware keys you can of course press those. If you can't manually assign the softkeys to other non-dedicated hardware keys, tell me about it and I'll knock some thing up to sort it.
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi!
What I'd like to know is: can you easily press the softkeys on the screen, using only one hand? (atom has no hardware buttons for the softkeys, and before buying it I want to be sure that one-handed operation is possible).
Thanks.
you can do it, but it's not easy because at least on the equivalent device (magician), the edge of the device tends to get in the way of the softkeys, which are like 7mm high. But it's perfectly feasible, and in the absense of dedicated keys, why not!?
None of these phones are particularly well setup for one handed use, but with some work, can be made that way!
V
vijay555,
thanks for the answer!
This is the first real user feedback I get about this.
I hope now that some Atom user will report, too.
I have been using the ATOM for the past 1 month and I have always used my thumb to activate the Softkey on the screen
it is much more comfortable that way
The ATOM is too small to use the bottom key (o2 media plus key ) as soft key (only key that can be reassigned in the front panel )
Also U cannot re map the Windows key as of now
I have been using the ATOM for the past 1 month and I have always used my thumb to activate the Softkey on the screen
it is much more comfortable that way
The ATOM is too small to use the bottom key (o2 media plus key ) as soft key (only key that can be reassigned in the front panel )
Also U cannot re map the Windows key as of now
Guys, can you not assign the Softkeys to hardware keys?
I could write an app to do that...
V
stargator said:
I have been using the ATOM for the past 1 month and I have always used my thumb to activate the Softkey on the screen
it is much more comfortable that way
The ATOM is too small to use the bottom key (o2 media plus key ) as soft key (only key that can be reassigned in the front panel )
Also U cannot re map the Windows key as of now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, good to know that that can be done.
What are the hardware buttons that can be remapped?
I read in a review that four hardware buttons can be remaped:
that should be "o2 media plus", "camera", "voice note".
What is the fourth? Power?
Apologies if this has been thoroughly covered, I went back 4-5 pages in each forum but didn't see anything.
From what I can gather from reviews and youtube videos the D-pad on the Touch pro works like a standard D-pad, and when in opera can be used to zoom in by circling it with a finger like a click wheel on an Ipod. Is it possible to modify it to work as a scroll wheel instead of a "zoom wheel". I know this isn't an option out of the box, but is it something that's possible, or being worked on?
I'm considering from the tilt, and while I've convinced myself that I don't need the hard left and right buttons, or the email & browser buttons, I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to working without any kind of jog dial/scroll wheel.
I think it's been asked and the answer is not yet.
The D-pad is one of the things I really don't like about the phone though, the buttons are all on the same plane, not separated in any way, and that makes it very difficult to differentiate the d-pad from the home/back/send/end buttons. I didn't find it was a problem until playing games, when I kept minimizing the window by hitting the Back button.
oh... the touch pro has a d-pad??? omg ive had the phone for almost a month and i only just discovered it. i thought it was just a scroll thing. its really hard to press though..
Black93300ZX said:
I think it's been asked and the answer is not yet.
The D-pad is one of the things I really don't like about the phone though, the buttons are all on the same plane, not separated in any way, and that makes it very difficult to differentiate the d-pad from the home/back/send/end buttons. I didn't find it was a problem until playing games, when I kept minimizing the window by hitting the Back button.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I don't really play a whole lot of games on my phone, but I do read a lot of really long email threads, and more importantly, when I'm bored I read sites like overheardinnewyork.com which is basically a lot of text to scroll through.
I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to have to find a way to "play" with a TP and see if I love it or not. I went 8125, x01ht, tilt, and now I'm looking to upgrade. but if this phone isn't going to rock me, I'll hold out (for what I don't know).
As much as I like flashing new roms to my tilt, it seems all anyone does is try to rip the best features from other phones...so at some point I might as well just get the other phone.
Diamond Tweak 0.5.3 allows you to enable d-pad scrolling for some applications.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=409540
(you need to soft-reset after you have changed options)
dougalls said:
Diamond Tweak 0.5.3 allows you to enable d-pad scrolling for some applications.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=409540
(you need to soft-reset after you have changed options)
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Click to collapse
Hmmm, looks promising. Have you tried it? I just can't imagine I'd ever use the zoom feature, although up to now I've used opera mini, so perhaps after switching to opera mobile I'd change my mind. But I'm still pretty sure I'd prefer to double tap the screen to zoom, and have another means of scrolling.
I have tried it and it works well for contacts (useful), programs etc but does not work with my Yahoo inbox (possibly due to the ROM I am using - ROmeOS v1.22) and it does not replace the zoom in opera. You can set up custom applications in DiamondTweak so it may be possible to overcome any differences between ROM's by setting up a custom application. I do use the zoom in opera so wouldn't want to replace it.
You can still double tap to zoom in/out on opera, as well as the wheel - the wheel lets you zoom in/out in small increments, double tapping toggles between full page and zoomed in.
DesCo said:
Hmmm, looks promising. Have you tried it? I just can't imagine I'd ever use the zoom feature, although up to now I've used opera mini, so perhaps after switching to opera mobile I'd change my mind. But I'm still pretty sure I'd prefer to double tap the screen to zoom, and have another means of scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think about this, with Opera Mobile you'll only have 2 levels of zoom ("in" or "out") unless you use the wheel to zoom. I liked being able to use it to fine tune and get things to look just right, but that's me. Try it out and see what you think.
With newer versions of Opera Mobile, there is now an on-screen zoom slider that adds a "tap and slide" button for incremental zooming. Now I find myself wanting an alternative to scrolling, since my finger otherwise covers up part of the screen and might accidentally click a link. Unfortunately the arrows and dpad don't scroll the page but instead jump from link to link.
This has been one detail (although a minor detail) that has made be begin to consider replacing my TP with the X1, since the X1's optical sensor dpad apparently provides scrolling functionality.
DesCo said:
Hmmm, looks promising. Have you tried it? I just can't imagine I'd ever use the zoom feature, although up to now I've used opera mini, so perhaps after switching to opera mobile I'd change my mind. But I'm still pretty sure I'd prefer to double tap the screen to zoom, and have another means of scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
use advance config 3.3 ........search for the link
go to options, click smart touch and it allows you to add any application, where in touch wheel (above D Pad) can be used for scrolling......i use it for contacts, file manager, program, call history, phone window, mails, messages and its really usefull and very cool........i dont use it for opera and internet explorer and use it for zooming as put in default
~
Kingjack
Thanks for the info. As I said, I haven't picked up the TP yet, I'm holding out for the Fuze (or a reasonably priced GSM model).
To change gears a bit, I'm curious, what kind of difference do people see in using cooked Roms on this device. I only ask because as a Kaiser user I'm used to using Roms because they incorporate features from the latest equipment. But as this is among the newest models out, and a "flagship" phone so to speak...is there much of an advantage over say a stock ATT rom minus the bloat? I enjoy high level of customization, and being able to pick my features, but as this is a relatively new device, I don't want to go through the trouble of unlocking and flashing if there isn't going to be a real gain in performance/features, or if it's going to impact performance (like trying to run Manilla 2d on a Kaiser, and pretending that a 5 second screen rotate time is ok)
PS: just for the record, despite my incredibly low post count, I've been lurking on the board for ~2 years...I'm not some (I hate this word) newb asking "what rom is best" or "can someone explain to me how to XXX reading the Wiki is too much work"...just wanted to throw that out there.
Volume buttons for scroll
Review on wmexperts of Sprint Touch Pro has the information below in the comments area. Looks like the reviewer followed up with the statement that he used AE Buttons to remap the volume buttons on the side, where the scroll wheel is on 8525/Tilt to scroll up and down with each click. I don't have Fuze, but it seems like this would work on it as well, I don't think it's a free softare though.
http://www.wmexperts.com/reviews/smartphones/review_24_hours_with_the_sprin.html
Buttons: I have successfully used AE Buttons to successfully remap the volume up and down buttons. I have the volume down button set at one click to scroll down and a log click for OK/Enter. The volume up button is set at one to scroll up and the log click Alt/Tab Wisbar's switch utility. I have also remapped the Back button to OK/Enter. The Home button now brings down the Start Menu on a single click and Email when I hold it down. This has made life a lot easier and has in virtually increased my available hardware buttons to a more comfortable level of usable buttons.
cparkhorn said:
Review on wmexperts of Sprint Touch Pro has the information below in the comments area. Looks like the reviewer followed up with the statement that he used AE Buttons to remap the volume buttons on the side, where the scroll wheel is on 8525/Tilt to scroll up and down with each click. I don't have Fuze, but it seems like this would work on it as well, I don't think it's a free softare though.
http://www.wmexperts.com/reviews/smartphones/review_24_hours_with_the_sprin.html
Buttons: I have successfully used AE Buttons to successfully remap the volume up and down buttons. I have the volume down button set at one click to scroll down and a log click for OK/Enter. The volume up button is set at one to scroll up and the log click Alt/Tab Wisbar's switch utility. I have also remapped the Back button to OK/Enter. The Home button now brings down the Start Menu on a single click and Email when I hold it down. This has made life a lot easier and has in virtually increased my available hardware buttons to a more comfortable level of usable buttons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How have you managed to get AEButton working on your home button?
I found that the home and back buttons seem to be "hard coded" to do their tasks, and AEbutton only assigns an *additional* task to each button. In other words, when I press Home for start menu, it first goes home, and then opens start. If I map the back button to Camera, it first goes back an application screen, then launches camera. Very annoying. The only buttons I found AEButton works with is the vol up and down. Is there a trick I'm missing?
On my tilt i used to have a nice exe on startup that would replace my windows key with the control key.
Now im looking for somthing like that to possibly replace the OK key all the way on the bottom left corner.
Any Ideas of any App or way i could do this??
-----------------------------------------------------
Here is the link to the exe i used on my tilt:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=121594&d=1223982517
I would find this interesting also. I've tried using MagicKB Lite for this but haven't been able to so far, although (so long as I also used the free Hook.mgr) I was able to make other symbols easily accessible on the Keyboard.
Personally, I'd rather use the CAPS key for this. Since we can press shift twice for caps lock having a CAPS key seems pretty silly.
Caveman6 said:
Personally, I'd rather use the CAPS key for this. Since we can press shift twice for caps lock having a CAPS key seems pretty silly.
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Click to collapse
Yes, that would be my choice as well.
i think the caps would make a better "TAB" key, at least on the fuze. I think i could deal with the OK button being remapped to Control (in the same spot as a normal keyboard, and then the caps key being remapped to TAB. Would love to figure this out.
Have you made any headway on remapping OK -> Ctrl and CAPS -> Tab? I've tried a utilitity that looked promising (http://ae.inc.ru/aekmap.php) but haven't been able to crack the egg.
Solution!
This thread shows up pretty high in google results so I wanted to document the solution in case somebody else is looking for it.
Tarkim created an app specifically for the Raphael (Fuze, Touch Pro) which lets you re-map just about anything. It works very well for me.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521786
Seriously consider donating something to him to thank him for his efforts!
I'm thinking of moving to T-Mobile, and I've seen some pics of the myTouch 4G Slide / HTC Doubleshot. However, the qwerty keypad seems to be missing arrow keys... Is there any arrow keys (or equivalent) on the qwerty keypad? I do some manipulation on spreadsheets and arrow keys are important for me.
The middle sensor button replaces the arrow keys.
AndroAsc said:
I'm thinking of moving to T-Mobile, and I've seen some pics of the myTouch 4G Slide / HTC Doubleshot. However, the qwerty keypad seems to be missing arrow keys... Is there any arrow keys (or equivalent) on the qwerty keypad? I do some manipulation on spreadsheets and arrow keys are important for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you notice on the bottom of the phone in the center there is an optical trackpad. It takes the place of arrow keys, you can use it to position the cursor. It also moves the homescreen back and forth and with stock roms can be pressed to wake up or put to sleep (some other roms have managed to implement that, as well, but not all).
I have the Slide. Since you asked on XDA I assume you are a coder or an aspiring coder.
I'd like to share my thoughts on the optical trackpad. To me as one who uses vi in ConnectBot console, the trackpad is no replacement for the keypad. The difference is that the keypad has the typomatic function where you want to go way to the right, just press and hold the right button. Can't do that with the optical trackpad; you have to slide your finger to the right 80 times to go there. (I know the vi $ command does it, but that's a 2-key action instead of 1 key because there isn't a dedicated '2' key: alt+2).
I'd add that the optical trackpad does implement the ctrl function when pressing the optical trackpad button when used under ConnectBot.
l00g33k said:
I have the Slide. Since you asked on XDA I assume you are a coder or an aspiring coder.
I'd like to share my thoughts on the optical trackpad. To me as one who uses vi in ConnectBot console, the trackpad is no replacement for the keypad. The difference is that the keypad has the typomatic function where you want to go way to the right, just press and hold the right button. Can't do that with the optical trackpad; you have to slide your finger to the right 80 times to go there. (I know the vi $ command does it, but that's a 2-key action instead of 1 key because there isn't a dedicated '2' key: alt+2).
I'd add that the optical trackpad does implement the ctrl function when pressing the optical trackpad button when used under ConnectBot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer using adb on computer instead of using a built in terminal
Riyal said:
I prefer using adb on computer instead of using a built in terminal
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Click to collapse
To be quite honest, i'd rather do everything I would do in adb through the terminal directly on the device if possible.
Especially anymore with the times few and very far between (at least at the moment) that I have access to a real computer, terminal capability has become more of a necessity then a preference.
About the arrow keys:
If you root then you can replace the keylayout file to add them, the pictures on the physical keys won't match up is all.
My first modified keylayout changed home to up, menu to down, back to left and genius to right arrow keys on the slide out keyboard - leaving those same keys in-tact for functionality on the face of the device.
When you slide out the keyboard, those four keys have the same function as the four keys at the bottom of the screen on the face of the device - seemed to me like they were begging for the change.
Aside from that, though, as nifty as the optical trackpad button is, and how incredibly useful it can be at times, it remains a poor substitute for actual arrow keys themselves.
Seriously considering getting a mytouch 4G slide, but the lack of arrow keys is the current deal breaker.
Can the trackpad be used efficiently to replace arrow keys? I do a lot of spreadsheet manipulation, and was wondering if it's going to work as well as arrow keys. It seems to be immensely irritating whenever I enter data into a cell, I need to move my fingers away from the QWERTY keyboard to the trackpad in order to move to the next cell, and then move my fingers back to the QWERTY board again...
Other posts here commented on key remapping, do the remapped keys alleviate the problem somewhat?
I think yes it's possible to remap some of it's keys into arrow keys.
It's possible to create new combination keys like pressing the www/.com + the letter O key would make up for the up arrow key. Some of the people here know how to mess with the keyconfigs so it's really good asking help with them. I just brought up the idea that it's possible but haven't really invested time looking into it but yeah I'mm 100% sure it's possible.
So, I'm loving the hell out of my Surface RT (64GB with black Touch cover) except for two things.
1: I use the actual function keys (F1-F12) a lot more than I need a shortcut key for the play/pause button or the Share charm. Due to the placement of the Fn button on the right side of the keyboard, it's difficult to use the keys the way I'm used to. For example, Alt+F4 is now Alt+Fn+Play/Pause, and requires two hands. If anybody can find a way to toggle the default state of the Fn key, I would be super-grateful! Ideally, I'd be able to actually remap he keys like you can on advanced USB keyboards; for example, I need the Home and End keys too, but rarely use F8-F10 so I'd like to remap those.
2: The default direction of the multitouch scroll drives me up a wall (but only if I try to drive down it). It's a pointing device, not a touchscreen, dammit! I expect it to function like a scroll wheel on a mouse, or the side-scroll on older PC touchpads, or the TrackPoint scroll on the Thinkpad, or... you get my point. Yes, I get that Apple did it first; they were dumb then, are still dumb now, and MS was very dumb to copy them. On the other hand, at least Apple lets you change it! If the direction of this scroll can be reversed (preferably without screwing up the scroll wheel of an actual mouse, if I were to connect one), that would be amazing.
I was really hoping that the included drivers would include controls for these things, the way Microsoft's normal mice and keyboards come with highly configurable drivers, or most Laptops come with fairly advanced Synaptics touchpad driver controls. If any of you have contacts at MS on or near the Surface team, tell them that we really want some drivers like those, please!
have you been able to resolve the Fn key issue?
GoodDayToDie said:
So, I'm loving the hell out of my Surface RT (64GB with black Touch cover) except for two things.
1: I use the actual function keys (F1-F12) a lot more than I need a shortcut key for the play/pause button or the Share charm. Due to the placement of the Fn button on the right side of the keyboard, it's difficult to use the keys the way I'm used to. For example, Alt+F4 is now Alt+Fn+Play/Pause, and requires two hands. If anybody can find a way to toggle the default state of the Fn key, I would be super-grateful! Ideally, I'd be able to actually remap he keys like you can on advanced USB keyboards; for example, I need the Home and End keys too, but rarely use F8-F10 so I'd like to remap those.
2: The default direction of the multitouch scroll drives me up a wall (but only if I try to drive down it). It's a pointing device, not a touchscreen, dammit! I expect it to function like a scroll wheel on a mouse, or the side-scroll on older PC touchpads, or the TrackPoint scroll on the Thinkpad, or... you get my point. Yes, I get that Apple did it first; they were dumb then, are still dumb now, and MS was very dumb to copy them. On the other hand, at least Apple lets you change it! If the direction of this scroll can be reversed (preferably without screwing up the scroll wheel of an actual mouse, if I were to connect one), that would be amazing.
I was really hoping that the included drivers would include controls for these things, the way Microsoft's normal mice and keyboards come with highly configurable drivers, or most Laptops come with fairly advanced Synaptics touchpad driver controls. If any of you have contacts at MS on or near the Surface team, tell them that we really want some drivers like those, please!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Fn Key issue is a little bit annoying, anybody have a solution for it?