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.
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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.
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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.
Related
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
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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
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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?
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??
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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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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 using Butler [ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=464611 ] to use the extra functionality of the hardware keys ... the only thing missing for me now is the possibility to use the 2 top buttons of the touch pro [Home and Back] for the left and right softkey (that's the only thing I miss from the kaiser). Any ideas how to do it without AEB ?
And is there a program you can launch to go to the today screen?
I'd be interested in this also. Thus far Da_G's latest roms have been able to reprogram every button except volume, home, and back keys.
Unfortunately the Volume, Home, and Back keys give me the most trouble. I always keep my phone on vibrate and I never use the Home/Back buttons. Even a good way to simply disable these keys would be a start. I'd much rather be able to use my dpad without ending up at the today screen.
Although someone said they used AEB to remap the Home/Back buttons to ONLY function on a double tap.
i was just thinking about this. i noticed i could change long press for send and end as soft keys. not enough buttons on the device you know.
I also would love to be able to reprogram the home and back keys to be the left and right softkeys. There has to be some way to do it...
I did some more searching on this topic. Try DredSensor. It works for me so far.
drcursor said:
I'm using Butler [ http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=464611 ] to use the extra functionality of the hardware keys ... the only thing missing for me now is the possibility to use the 2 top buttons of the touch pro [Home and Back] for the left and right softkey (that's the only thing I miss from the kaiser). Any ideas how to do it without AEB ?
And is there a program you can launch to go to the today screen?
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If we can get the home, back button, set as left and right softkeys as well as set pressing the center button in as OK button then i would have zero complaints about my att fuze. Sometimes i turn my tilt back on just to use programs such as opera mini, life is so much easier with softkeys!
DarrenUtd said:
I also would love to be able to reprogram the home and back keys to be the left and right softkeys. There has to be some way to do it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes im sure everyone is aware of dredsensor which is what i have to use when running opera mini on my fuze. What we are talking about is setting the home and back button as softkeys for good for all apps by default and also having the center button as OK as well. Do we really need a home and back button anyways? I mean we have touch screen phones, i can drag my thumb to get to home screen and press the center button to go back if set to OK button.
No we don't need an Home and Back button. The home button works the exact same as the End key. The back button is iffy. While I don't use it much, I'm sure "some" people do. There are the occasional situations when the back button is useful.
If you make the Center button "Close/Ok", then you won't have a select button. What WOULD work is set the center button to default, but do an "Close/Ok" on Center Hold.
I wish we had all the buttons unlocked to do what we wish. Using Home/Back as softkeys aren't a big deal to me, BUT being able to at least disable them or remap them in games would be sweet. (yes I know about DredSensor... I'm talking about permanent).
Another thing I am aiming for is a "virtual D-pad" using the touch pad area around the center button. Allowing us to navigate simply by making contact to the "hotspots". This would at least fix the problem with using the Dpad in games without ending up at the today screen.
If we could offload the navigational functions to the touchpad... then we could remap the buttons up/down to launch programs or whatever (left and right too).
So Pressing the buttons on the touchpad could launch apps or be used as softkeys or whatever but touching the touchpad would navigate.
Here is the thread; http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=473023
The last couple of posts have been playing down my earlier suggestion to use dredsensor to remap the home and back buttons to be the left and right softkeys (the topic of this thread). I'm not affiliated with dredsensor in any way, but I wanted to clear up this issue.
Since version 1.1 was posted on 1/17, you can in fact remap the buttons as stated above. In your config.ini file, for the [Default] profile with WindowTitle=* and ClassName=*, you have the entries:
HardKey_Launch1=Key:SoftKey1and
HardKey_Launch3=Key:SoftKey2
I'm not sure what you guys mean by "permanent" or "for good for all apps by default", but with this configuration these rules should apply in any app, which would seem to be what you want. I've been using this for a few days now and it works for me in the applications I've used. Anyway, it's just a suggestion. Maybe give it a try and I hope it helps.
i followed your suggestion..but i find the behavior erratic..sometimes it looks like it just goes to sleep and the keys are back to normal, and then out of nowhere starts to run again :\
drcursor said:
i followed your suggestion..but i find the behavior erratic..sometimes it looks like it just goes to sleep and the keys are back to normal, and then out of nowhere starts to run again :\
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From what I've read, there could be problems if you have G-Scroll installed, or maybe on some specific ROMs. Maybe post the issues you are having so that the developer can fix it in the next version.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=472280&page=2
Basically what I am looking is a browser or keyboard that allows you to have arrow keys that function like the arrow keys on a computer keyboard.
I use a particular website for work that uses the left and right arrow keys to get from one task to the other ( I think its a flash based module on the site) and I would love to access it from my phone, but I cant navigate due to the lack of arrow keys.
The issue is, there is no text field on that page, so the keyboard does not pop up, which is why Im thinking Im might need a browser thats able to "bind" keys, per se....
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks so much!
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!
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Click to collapse
The Fn Key issue is a little bit annoying, anybody have a solution for it?