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Hi Guys,
First thank you all for such a great community. XDA truly "sold" me the HTC fuze...as I was very excited about such an excellent user base. I lurked here for a few days before I bought, and have lurked a few more days while I have played with the phone, so far with very positive experiences...
So here is my question...
I am an ex blackberry user...4 years running. Had the 7290 and the more recent 8800. I liked the phones but were frequently frustrated by things such as lack of home-brew software (or at least lack of software easy to find and well supported), lack of a decent web browser, lack of an attractive UI (albeit theirs was very functional) and lack of 3G (on att at the moment). Now I know that the BB Bold fixed some of this, but to me its the same ole blackberry tricks (do email real well, slack off on the rest), and I was really ready for a highly extensible smart phone.
Enter the HTC fuze...
I love the apps, love the idea of custom ROMS, love that it runs a very common platform (windows mobile, important as some companies write apps that only run on windows mobile), and love the sheer power of the HTC fuze (can easily browse filesystem, look at memory usage...its essentially a very small laptop), but I have one primary complaint...it does all these cool things, but IMO it does NOT do email/messaging/contact management well...and worse, I have not been as impressed with the web browser as I thought I would be (using opera, have not tried IE...also some of this is my fault, I am trying to use fat-client web pages vs mobile web pages, which are faster and just perform better). Now before I get flamed, let me clarify that I am using the Energy Rom 3.0, so some of my griefing may be self inflicted. That being said, here are some specifics of what irritations Ive ran into with messaging/email/contact management...ill list them out categorized in order of importance (can you tell I am an engineer?)
Email
1. No heads up display of new messages on the home screen (have to poke around to the email area to see if you have new messages)
2. Does not enter an @ and . symbol when hitting spacebar key while typing email address in "To:" field (ex-blackberry users will sympathize)
3. I get too many emails for the graphical envelope to be useful...it looks cool, but when I am 30 emails deep i really don't want to have to click menu to get to all messages, just let the mail icon take me right to the goodies please...
4. read/unread/replied messages are not well represented (could be that it is just different that the blackberry feel, but a different color or something would be nice...the standard is bold/yellow/dark is unread and light/white/shadowy is read...and replied as some sort of representation as well
There are a few others but those are the main ones
Messaging
1. Clicking the message, and then immediately beginning to type (as in to reply) will take you to the address book!!, in order to start a new message! It is beyond me why it does not just start entering text as a reply for your current message you are viewing, and this is a huge annoyance!
2. Found this the other day...replying to an MMS message by clicking gives an error (wont deliver) but hitting menu and then reply will then prompt for "MMS or SMS reply?" and the message goes through fine...irritating!
3. Tapping spacebar twice does not place a period, although not capitalizing the first letter in a sentence auto-capitalizes - this is a blackberry feature that is not here and i miss it :'(
4. Once again lack of proper heads up in the home menu....why is the clock giant??? Looks cool but waste of space...I would rather have a breakdown of my messages/emails/missed calls with limited details so I can see whats going on, on my home screen.
5. General slowness when going from the message browsing with the envelopes to the reply, detailed view.
Contact Management
1. Adding a contact is no where near simple...and there are too many "mines" you can accidentally click in the process which will do odd things like add an address book entry with no name in it, or call someone!
2. The "people" tab is useless...i removed it (not really a complaint as I fixed it...but I just don't understand that concept of favorites....that being said my background is in database administration so all data is good data to me, the more the merrier...explains my 500+ contacts, half of which i prob dont need but keep around just in case)
3. Last name first???? Blackberry was always first name last...further more, I entered a business the other day in my contact list, and it put the second part of the business name as the last name, leading to a very odd address book entry...I did not like that bit of assumption on the phones part.
So I guess you could probably sum up all my complaints into 3 things:
1. I am way too used to blackberry shortcuts and having a hard time weening myself off
2. There are 10 ways to do the same things and get to the same places on the phone, and some times a few of those ways are less buggy/intuitive than others...why not just have the best methods enabled only?
3. Too many buttons take you places you did not intend to be...its not one way in one way out of each module (mail, messaging, ect.)...its 5 ways in, 10 ways deeper, uh....im lost, how do I make a phone call? (I'm being facetious of course but you get my drift)
Anyways, I am not trying to slam the phone, it is slick, sexy, and free (refurb through an ATT deal), but I just need some ROM/tweak/psychological suggestions to make it "fit" me better.
Thank you all truly,
Crackberry addict in serious withdrawal
Ok, so piece by piece:
Email:
1. For a pop-up for new email messages, go to start>settings>sounds¬ifications>notifications. There you can choose messaging: new email message, and select display message on screen. This will give you a pop up at the bottom every time you get a new email. you can do this for all those other events that are in the drop down too.
2. Don't know of anything to do this
3. There should be a inbox button for your i think left soft-key. Two clicks isn't much more than 1
4. Don't know of anything
Messaging:
1. This happens jut because of lag in the system. You have to wait until everything loads up to start typing. Sounds like you need a cooked rom
2. Bug?
3. My phone does what you ask, although I am running 6.5. My settings in input have "enable auto correct" with a check mark next to them. Don't know if this solves the problem in 6.1
4. Regular Today screen. Try something like TouchFlo Detacher, which allows you with the soft key button to easily and quickly switch back and forth between the regular today screen, which would have all that info that you desire, and touchflo. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=480475
5. Cooked rom, bigger pagepool
Contact Management:
1. Sorry this is just winmo. Contact entry area is not exactly the most finger friendly menu. Try the stylus. I know what you mean, though.
2. Basically the people tab is just for people you call on a daily basis, and it looks cool lol
3. You can change that in the contact's settings where it says "file as"; I like first name first also, so I just changed it so that was the way it is displayed.
Overall Points:
1. It is difficult to go from blackberry to winmo, but everything does have a slight learning curve.
2. Most view this to be the beauty of winmo. You have infinite possibilities, since everyone likes to do things differently. If microsoft wanted to assume that everyone wanted to do everything the same way and that there was one, best, all-powerful way to do things, then they could just merge with apple
3. Lol don't understand this one
Any more questions, I'd be happy to help
thanks
hey,
thanks for the detailed reply. got most of the answers i needed...I am using a cooked rom (energy 3.0) which runs WM 6.5, but it comes with the Manila skin. After doing some research I think I need to ditch that and start from there...any other pointers?
You could try to use the default WM6.5 home plugin instead of TF3D, it may suit your needs better.
After discovering a lot of great features on my rooted E900, a new question made me using search function, but with not much help! So: is there any tweak in registry to change keyboard from full querty to keypad (like the physical keyboard from old phones, 1 to 9 with * and # and pressing three times on two for ex to write C letter) when you write a text message or text a web adress? I find this more handy when I'm driving, because with all that small letters from full querty is more dificult. Thanks in advance, and hope there is a solution, because when you write a number in the sms recipient, that keyboard appears.
I'm trying to think of a polite way to say this, and the best I've come up with is that, while I don't care terribly much about *your* car, I'm sufficiently concerned about the random people around you that the thought of making it easier to use your phone while driving is not even slightly appealing (for the record, it's illegal here, and for good reason).
For the record, I'm not so irresponsible so that I'm texting sms and driving, especially since I have a small baby in the backseat. When I PULL OVER and try to text something, the sunlight makes it harder to see the small buttons and I always hit the wrong button. I have pretty big fingers and that's why I want to use such a keypad.
And no offence, but I will never come to Seatle, only if I will win lottery and want to meet you personally, so don't be concerned.
The question still stays. Thank you
Please... Can someone help me with keypad?
Do any one has found a way to get the froyo (spell check for second language feature ?)
Or a way to change the spell checking from whatever language is in settings without having to go settings --> input --> spell check --> navigate trough list of languages ?
I tough of adding 140k french words and 100k Spanish words to the custom dict using UDM app but didn't work... the spell checker insist in using its own dict and ignore my custom.
This problem is magnified with the use of the bloody dock keyboard which was the single reason i bought the TF700 (which is on ebay for sale ATM)
I remember the times when Linux meant freedom and flexibility... JB is an Ugly unfinished IOs rip off (and that's in a good day)
Nazeroth said:
Do any one has found a way to get the froyo (spell check for second language feature ?)
Or a way to change the spell checking from whatever language is in settings without having to go settings --> input --> spell check --> navigate trough list of languages ?
I tough of adding 140k french words and 100k Spanish words to the custom dict using UDM app but didn't work... the spell checker insist in using its own dict and ignore my custom.
This problem is magnified with the use of the bloody dock keyboard which was the single reason i bought the TF700 (which is on ebay for sale ATM)
I remember the times when Linux meant freedom and flexibility... JB is an Ugly unfinished IOs rip off (and that's in a good day)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem your encountering is not a "JB" issue. Rather, it is the fact that the TF700 (and ASUS in general) uses a proprietary subsystem called XT9 (produced by a company called 'Nuance'). For this reason, we cannot create new keyboard layouts nor add more languages. I've been investigating this in my spare time and, though there are some hacks you can do for some modified functionality, the extent you are wanting requires information that is just not available.
Hope this at least gives you a better idea of what the problem is.
Alien, thanks for your reply,
Maybe some of my problems come from the TF but the second language spell check is a feature last since ICS, that was the reason I sold my SG3 after three days.
I use a qwerty layout on all my hardware and my Desire HD2 for example is set to English and second language French.
I still miss spanish but it being my mother language i tend not make many mistakes on it.
There is a Bug report for Android about it http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22707
The problem is that they split the system Spell checker and now we realy a lot on the keyboard used and its suggestions, evidently that magnifies the problem on a Docked Asus TF but it is general to Android.
I think sadly that this is going the wrong way, like the bar not being hidable, or the gmail app not allowing to remove the conversation view... Google is trying to force on users theyir way of what is better for you just as Apple does.
even more Sadly Ubuntu and Unity are taking the same path. (I.E Unity top bar cant be hidden, at least they had the tought of putting it on top, as on android every time i try the OSK on the asus instead of space i hit the bar andallmywordslooklikethis)).
Nazeroth said:
Alien, thanks for your reply,
Maybe some of my problems come from the TF but the second language spell check is a feature last since ICS, that was the reason I sold my SG3 after three days.
I use a qwerty layout on all my hardware and my Desire HD2 for example is set to English and second language French.
I still miss spanish but it being my mother language i tend not make many mistakes on it.
There is a Bug report for Android about it http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=22707
The problem is that they split the system Spell checker and now we realy a lot on the keyboard used and its suggestions, evidently that magnifies the problem on a Docked Asus TF but it is general to Android.
I think sadly that this is going the wrong way, like the bar not being hidable, or the gmail app not allowing to remove the conversation view... Google is trying to force on users theyir way of what is better for you just as Apple does.
even more Sadly Ubuntu and Unity are taking the same path. (I.E Unity top bar cant be hidden, at least they had the tought of putting it on top, as on android every time i try the OSK on the asus instead of space i hit the bar andallmywordslooklikethis)).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand your meaning as I am multilingual myself and Android isn't as versatile as I would like. I'm merely saying that everything that is entered via the dock on your TF700 is handled by the subsystem and not by Android directly. Anything that is entered via "ASUS Keyboard" is available for spell-check in the keyboard language that is selected. Just try opening SuperNote and typing in something like "Eu sou um americano Je suis un américain Yo soy un americano Ich bin eine Amerikaner" then setup your ASUS Keyboard for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. While in Supernote, press Left-Control+Left-Shift to bring up the keyboard list, and select a different language. When you change the contents (like add a space at the end) you can see it reparse everything and highlight words that are not known in the selected keyboard language. It's not 100% perfect but it should at least give you a bit of flexibility.
Edit: For clarification, no I don't speak/write in French, German, or Spanish. They were just thrown in for elaborating the test.
Thanks Alien, didn't knew about the CTRL ALT thing, however I did the rational thing... Sold the Asus and got an Ipad after all i only need to do note taking on the go, boor reader and emails and sadly the bloody ipad handles those very well...
BTW: I had removed Super notes after it crashed on me and made me loose a lot of text i had entered, i was using another note app free from the market that did less but did well.
I dont know if im getting older or what but my frustration trying to get the most of my screen while reading books and coherent margins and stuff while my wife laugthed at me reading the same book from her ipad got to me.
Now trying to jailbreak the thing so i can brick it lol...
PS: With a BT apple KB, command space swaps the language im writing in seamless like with the on screen keyboard and the spell check works, thou auto caps not...
I've tried dozens of keyboards but always end up landing on Perfect Keyboard Pro as my default. Its T9 key and voice key are appropriately placed, and its basic, yet customizable layout is superb!
There is but one little annoyance. It seems to come preloaded with dictionary words that I can't delete.
For example, if I type the word after, then AfterDawn pops up as a suggested word (as much as I like AfterDawn, I just don't type it enough for it to be in my dictionary). Another example would be if I type the word only, I get Molybdenum as a suggestion (I had to look that word up).
These suggestions are not in the stock dictionary, and don't pop up as suggestions in any other keyboard I install, so it must be exclusive to PKP.
Tried emailing you at [email protected] but no response, has anybody had any luck with this app's user dictionary?
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I HAVE RESOLVED THIS ISSUE BY DOING THE FOLLOWING:
1) Root the SM-P900 using ODIN. (it's a breeze to do - just follow the directions!)
2) Install TWRP recovery and then do a full TWRP backup of your device.
3) Download & Install the new "Hyperdrive Note Pro 12.2 KK RLS1.1" ROM from here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-note-pro-12/development/rom-hyperdrive-kk-rls1-tab-s-t2986949
Follow the directions for installing this ROM very closely. As recommended, FULLY WIPE your device - everything except the external SD card - BEFORE installing the new ROM.
4) Download the AOSP "MAIL" APK and "Exchange Services" APK from here: *SEE NOTES BELOW
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/exchange-services/exchange-services-6-2-1158763-apk/
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/email/email-6-3-1218562-apk/
These are "Exchange Services 6.2-1158763" and "Email 6.3-1218562", respectively. (These are the last stock, Android versions before the forced upgrade/merge to Gmail)
5) Install (side-load) the Exchange Services APK and then Email APK - from whatever folder you downloaded the files to.
* NOTES:
A) Side-loading is necessary because the Play Store will recognize that you have an SM-P900 and won't allow the install. It has nothing to do with compatibility, but rather agreements made between Samsung and Google (and likely Apple, as well), to prevent you from doing this.
B) Replacing the Samsung Email with AOSP Email is required for a complete fix because the Samsung app seems to side-step the re-enabling of the red-underline spell-check. In other words, your new, working spell check will work nearly everywhere - except inside the stock Samsung Email app!
C) These are NOT the most recent versions of Exchange and Mail, but they are the last ones before GMAIL swallowed MAIL - and I prefer the stock AOSP MAIL. If you install a higher version, you will be forced to 'upgrade' to the GMAIL app during installation. It's up to you, of course.
I'M SURE YOU WILL BE AS HAPPY AS I AM - FINALLY!
PLEASE DONATE TO THE DEVELOPER, sbreen94 - HE'S DONE SOMETHING REALLY GOOD AND INVESTED A LOT OF TIME FOR A VERY ESOTERIC DEVICE - THE P900 - WITH A SMALL USER-BASE.
THE ROM PROVIDES MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN A SPELLING-CORRECTION FIX - THAT'S JUST MY THING. OUT-OF-THE-BOX, THIS ROM IS STOCK TOUCHWIZ - EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE USED TO, INCLUDING FULL S-PEN SUPPORT AND ALL THE SAMSUNG APPS (OR WHICHEVER ONES YOU WANT - YOU CAN CHOISE DURUNG JNSTALL).
HOWEVER, IT 'UNLOCKS' TW AND ALLOWS YOU TO TWEAK MANY VISUAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS, TO YOUR LIKING. AS THE DEVELOPER SAYS ABOUT THE ROM...
"Touchwiz how I think it should be: The latest Samsung Tab S Software features as well as a Fully Customizable User Interface on the fly as well as excellent performance and battery life."
LASTLY, BE AWARE THAT THIS ROM IS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE SM-P900 NOTE PRO 12.2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm desperate! I can type faster and with fewer mistakes on my puny, 5-year-old iPhone 3GS than I can on my HUGE Note Pro 12.2 horizontal keyboard. Predictive text is retarded. I'm tired of fighting with auto-replace. All I want is a little red line under each of my misspelled words, like in the old days - before Samsung crippled Android. I've tried Anysoft, Hacker's, Google,... as Gordon Gecko once said, "different dog, same fleas".
I've stock-rooted the tablet with CF. What next? I'll install any mod or keyboard that does this simple thing. I don't care about the warranty, or if the UI ends up looking like Windows 1.0 and sharp pins jump out at every virtual key-press, puncturing my fingertips as I type - just show me the misspelled words before I click 'Send'!
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Proper keyboard spelling check....
treetopsranch said:
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your timely reply. In the context of a Windows PC, for example, I would wholly agree with you - that spell check is provided by the host application; however, it seems that in the mobile world, a different approach was taken, with the 'keyboard' providing a unified spelling correction that behaved identically within all applications. This is very evident in iOS, and is well documented as a mysteriously disappearing keyboard option ("Underline Misspelled Words") in fairly recent Samsung distributions of Android. KitKat seems to be where the trouble really started, and some claim that this was among the casualties of the Apple-Samsung patent wars. Placing a red line under an unrecognized word, after the spacebar is pressed or navigating away from it, seems well within the means of a keyboard app. That simple red line is all I'm looking for.
Other (non-Samsung) Kitkat devices appear to still have it....
...Owners of HTC devices, running KitKat, claim to still have the 'Underline misspelled words' option in their keyboard options.
No underlines for you!
treetopsranch said:
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've always understood that if I failed to ‘fix' this deficiency, I would have to find an email client with its own spelling correction, "like MS Word does using Windows", either utilizing its own dictionary or one of the two already installed in the tablet - stock Samsung or Anysoft.
Last night, I did some research and landed on ‘MailDroid', having a true spell checker among its many other impessive features. So, I installed the ad-paid version to test it out, fully prepared to fork over $22 for the ‘Pro' version. Email is my main concern, so I was getting excited! Installation was a breeze and within 2 or 3 minutes I was up and running with 2 accounts. And, yes, misspelled words were immediately underlined in red!!! Yipppeeeee!!!! Such a feature-rich, $22 app surely comes with its own dictionary, right?
So, just for fun, I disabled WIFI and tried to compose an email, offline. Then I felt something happening around my feet. I looked down and saw a Google API flopping around on the carpet, gasping for air. It was tring to say something, so I got closer and I could hear it muttering "feed me, feed me".
When I bought this tablet 6 months ago, I just expected it to work at least as well as my 5-year-old Apple 3GS. For a couple of months, I just figured that I wasn't understanding something, that I just needed to find that one setting - it was just hiding somewhere in unfamiliar Android territory. Some folks would say things like "No, it's not like that. Just play with the auto-replace and word prediction settings, or try another keyboard." Well, I did all of that and I'm sorry - Apple does a way better job with automatic correction - even identifying and separating words that are both misspelled and conjoined with errantly typed letters from the bottom row! And the few mistakes that do get past this magic are UNDERLINED IN RED! All applications that require text entry enjoy this unified writing tool... and all of it works even in ‘Airplane Mode' - offline!
There are two installed, accessible, LOCAL dictionaries on my tablet - including stock Samsung... Asking why an email client ]needs to go online for a dictionary is entirely rhetorical - especially when Google is involved.
One of the reasons I bought an Android tablet (and ultimately rooted it) - as well as being a protest vote against Apple's authoritarian control over what I do with MY mobile device - was to gain at least some control over unnecessary permissions, personal data leakage and data mining...
But, it feels like there's a trap - or a beaten-down conformist holding a sign that says "That's just the way it is" - everywhere I step. :crying:
WOW! You did a great job explaining this android dictionary stuff to me. I suspect the app 'Maildroid' didn't have a dictionary installed because of memory concerns. Dictionaries take up lots of space in memory. But, Hey, Word had one for XP in the days when we had very little memory on our machines 10 years ago. So that is really no excuse. A major fault for android devices in my book.
swiftkey keyboard app
Phuyuk said:
I'm desperate! I can type faster and with fewer mistakes on my puny, 5-year-old iPhone 3GS than I can on my HUGE Note Pro 12.2 horizontal keyboard. Predictive text is retarded. I'm tired of fighting with auto-replace. All I want is a little red line under each of my misspelled words, like in the old days - before Samsung crippled Android. I've tried Anysoft, Hacker's, Google,... as Gordon Gecko once said, "different dog, same fleas".
I've stock-rooted the tablet with CF. What next? I'll install any mod or keyboard that does this simple thing. I don't care about the warranty, or if the UI ends up looking like Windows 1.0 and sharp pins jump out at every virtual key-press, puncturing my fingertips as I type - just show me the misspelled words before I click 'Send'!
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiftkey key board app allows you to use a physical bluetooth key board and still have spell check for the win. AWSOME!!! Get the app at play store for free.
Swiftkey? Are you serious?
samsunggoliath said:
Swiftkey key board app allows you to use a physical bluetooth key board and still have spell check for the win. AWSOME!!! Get the app at play store for free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiftkey? You think i haven't already tried that? And adding a physical keyboard - defeating the purpose of having a physically-simple, stand-alone communication device - to this [email protected]!%& top-of-the-line, most-expensive-Android-tablet-in the-world - that I paid over $800 for with a memory card? Really?
I have a better idea: Invest not one more penny in this mistake, cut my losses, and get a different kind of keyboard - one that comes with a screen and does what it was designed to do, correctly.... and I will not have to patch it up with goofy solutions because it will also have Windows or Ubuntu built-in- at no extra cost! Wait a second... I already own one - this isn't going to cost me a cent!
BTW, since I first posted on this topic, I bought - directly from China, a new Android Kitkat phone - made by Foxconn. I had it in 5 days and Including shipping, it cost me less than $200, has a lovely 5" 300ppi screen, quad-core Snapdragon, all of the sensors known to mankind, a decent camera (front and back), and a real FM radio! Oh, and you know what else it has?!? Oh, c'mon... you know what's coming.... AN INTEGRATED, UNIVERSAL, ANDROID SPELLING CHECKER WITH RED LINES UNDER EVERY SPELLING MISTAKE! I don't need to get a keyboard or pay for more software because it already does what it's supposed to do! I can type an error-free paragraph, with confidence, more than twice as fast on that little phone than I can on this overpriced piece of TouchWiz.
And that is the problem - TouchWiz. Samsung lost a lawsuit and quietly crippled the OS with Touchwiz. Sadly, since this tablet is so overpriced to begin with, not many people bought it, not many accessories have been made for it, and more importantly, no front-end, TouchWiz-replacements have been developed for / ported to it as has been done for nearly every other Samsung device.
Like I said in an earlier post... it feels like there's a trap - or a beaten-down conformist holding a sign that says "That's just the way it is" - everywhere I step.
Problem FIXED!!!
Please read the EDITED FIRST POST in this thread.
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