Hi!
So I recently got an EVO Shift to replace my old G1. I had waited a long time for that phone because I needed something with a hardware keyboard that ran a decent android OS, and I wanted to go with HTC again. It turns out the HW keyboard on the shift was just abysmal. So abysmal, in fact, that it was actually *easier* to use the onscreen one, which I hate.
Here's a twitter post I made about my frustration with the kb, using the phone: "Wshokedvedrd dxeedszigtnedd tfhed kedyboardxe on thed edvo szhiftg n deeddsz tfo deied ikn az frcirded." Can you decipher that? because I have a hard time, and I wrote it. Correcting my typing was fighting the law of diminishing returns, because with 2/3 of my keystrokes being messed up, I'd be correcting the corrections to my corrections to my corrections and so on basically forever, and I just didn't want to deal with that--WAY too much effort. Despite frequently evnting my frustration at how long it took the G1 to boot up, open an app, or answer a phone call, I found myself quickly regretting my decision to upgrade when I was wasting FAR MORE time attempting to type sentences that would have taken me virtually no time at all on the G1 keyboard.
Anyhow, after a week of fighting with the thing and making no progress, I took it back to Sprint and exchanged it for an Evo 3D, because I figured if I couldn't have a useable hardware keyboard, I might as well have a larger screen so I would have one less thing to hate about the onscreen keyboard. It makes sense logically, really... plus, I figured, with a software keyboard there was a good chance I could customize it or find a modified version of the software that I liked better.
Well, a day or so in and I'm really learning to hate this keyboard more than I thought I would... it just seems, to me at least--a touch typist--a really bad design. To compound matters I'm having a hard time finding any keyboards that are better! it seems like they're all jumping on the same bandwagon with the completely impractical apple-esque touchscreen keyboard that takes forever to type anything on.
Anyway, I was hoping someone here might know of some keyboard mod that would actually be nice to use... to give you an idea of what I consider nice to use, here are a list of specific things I hate about the default, swype, and smart keyboard.:
1) can't see what you're responding to with the keyboard open in landscape mode. This is really irksome to me. It means I have to constantly hit back to view the original email/message/post I'm replying to every sentence or so, then return to the keyboard again to continue typing. I don't need to have 4 lines of my reply visible at once, and would much rather have that extra space the input box takers up be used to view the page behind it.
2) no shift/alt keys on the right-hand side of the keyboard. I don't want to have to use my left hand to capitalize a key I want to hit with my left hand, and so on. It's unnatural and annoying.
3) not a standard qwerty layout. The n key should be below the h and j keys, not below the k key. This really throws me off, and I'm constantly needing to backspace and concentrate on the lower row of the keyboard to correct it whenever I use one of those keys.
4) dumb selection of punctuation available at hand, and in dumb locations... like the , key on the left side of the keyboard, or the / key replaced with a @ key. To compound matters the touch-and-hold punctuation takes about a hundred times longer to activate than would be practical for me, and there's no continuity between that and the alt keyboard. It would be really nice if symbols didn't move around to new locations when you hit alt, so you could see them and know where they're going to be.
5) lack of number row. This is less important than seeing what's behind the top of the keyboard, but considering the VAST amount of space that stupid text input box takes up, it shouldn't be unreasonable to fit BOTH in there and still see what you're typing.
6) dumb/irritating autocorrect or predictive text functions. I don't need my keyboard second-guessing what I'm trying to say. I would much rather have it just underline misspelled words and let me tap on them to select the intended correction. None of the keyboards I've tried so far let me do this. I type a lot of technical jargon or code segments which aren't proper words, and I don't want the phone sneaking corrections in there where I don't want them.
7) no practical cursor control, arrow keys, etc.. would be happy with just a "button mouse" dot to drag or something... anything to move my cursor up, down, left and right.
I would be okay with slightly smaller keys in favor of packing more of them in there, because precision is something I can eventually adjust to... but bad key placement is not. I work a job where I type all day on a qwerty keyboard, so when I go to use another device, I need the N key to be where the N key belongs, and I need faster and easier access to important keys like numbers, and commonly used punctuation. No, the "facebook age" does not mean that @ should be more easily accessible than ". Modern cellphone users devolving into semi-illiterate AOL shorthand users is not an excuse for making it harder to use proper grammar and punctuation on a cellphone. Just my 2c.
Anyway, sorry for rant.
TL;DR: I need a practical keyboard made intuitive for touch-typists in a semi-technical, utilitarian fashion. Please advise.
So I recently got an EVO Shift to replace my old G1. I had waited a long time for that phone because I needed something with a hardware keyboard that ran a decent android OS, and I wanted to go with HTC again. It turns out the HW keyboard on the shift was just abysmal. So abysmal, in fact, that it was actually *easier* to use the onscreen one, which I hate.
Here's a twitter post I made about my frustration with the kb, using the phone: "Wshokedvedrd dxeedszigtnedd tfhed kedyboardxe on thed edvo szhiftg n deeddsz tfo deied ikn az frcirded." Can you decipher that? because I have a hard time, and I wrote it. Correcting my typing was fighting the law of diminishing returns, because with 2/3 of my keystrokes being messed up, I'd be correcting the corrections to my corrections to my corrections and so on basically forever, and I just didn't want to deal with that--WAY too much effort. Despite frequently evnting my frustration at how long it took the G1 to boot up, open an app, or answer a phone call, I found myself quickly regretting my decision to upgrade when I was wasting FAR MORE time attempting to type sentences that would have taken me virtually no time at all on the G1 keyboard.
Anyhow, after a week of fighting with the thing and making no progress, I took it back to Sprint and exchanged it for an Evo 3D, because I figured if I couldn't have a useable hardware keyboard, I might as well have a larger screen so I would have one less thing to hate about the onscreen keyboard. It makes sense logically, really... plus, I figured, with a software keyboard there was a good chance I could customize it or find a modified version of the software that I liked better.
Well, a day or so in and I'm really learning to hate this keyboard more than I thought I would... it just seems, to me at least--a touch typist--a really bad design. To compound matters I'm having a hard time finding any keyboards that are better! it seems like they're all jumping on the same bandwagon with the completely impractical apple-esque touchscreen keyboard that takes forever to type anything on.
Anyway, I was hoping someone here might know of some keyboard mod that would actually be nice to use... to give you an idea of what I consider nice to use, here are a list of specific things I hate about the default, swype, and smart keyboard.:
1) can't see what you're responding to with the keyboard open in landscape mode. This is really irksome to me. It means I have to constantly hit back to view the original email/message/post I'm replying to every sentence or so, then return to the keyboard again to continue typing. I don't need to have 4 lines of my reply visible at once, and would much rather have that extra space the input box takers up be used to view the page behind it.
2) no shift/alt keys on the right-hand side of the keyboard. I don't want to have to use my left hand to capitalize a key I want to hit with my left hand, and so on. It's unnatural and annoying.
3) not a standard qwerty layout. The n key should be below the h and j keys, not below the k key. This really throws me off, and I'm constantly needing to backspace and concentrate on the lower row of the keyboard to correct it whenever I use one of those keys.
4) dumb selection of punctuation available at hand, and in dumb locations... like the , key on the left side of the keyboard, or the / key replaced with a @ key. To compound matters the touch-and-hold punctuation takes about a hundred times longer to activate than would be practical for me, and there's no continuity between that and the alt keyboard. It would be really nice if symbols didn't move around to new locations when you hit alt, so you could see them and know where they're going to be.
5) lack of number row. This is less important than seeing what's behind the top of the keyboard, but considering the VAST amount of space that stupid text input box takes up, it shouldn't be unreasonable to fit BOTH in there and still see what you're typing.
6) dumb/irritating autocorrect or predictive text functions. I don't need my keyboard second-guessing what I'm trying to say. I would much rather have it just underline misspelled words and let me tap on them to select the intended correction. None of the keyboards I've tried so far let me do this. I type a lot of technical jargon or code segments which aren't proper words, and I don't want the phone sneaking corrections in there where I don't want them.
7) no practical cursor control, arrow keys, etc.. would be happy with just a "button mouse" dot to drag or something... anything to move my cursor up, down, left and right.
I would be okay with slightly smaller keys in favor of packing more of them in there, because precision is something I can eventually adjust to... but bad key placement is not. I work a job where I type all day on a qwerty keyboard, so when I go to use another device, I need the N key to be where the N key belongs, and I need faster and easier access to important keys like numbers, and commonly used punctuation. No, the "facebook age" does not mean that @ should be more easily accessible than ". Modern cellphone users devolving into semi-illiterate AOL shorthand users is not an excuse for making it harder to use proper grammar and punctuation on a cellphone. Just my 2c.
Anyway, sorry for rant.
TL;DR: I need a practical keyboard made intuitive for touch-typists in a semi-technical, utilitarian fashion. Please advise.
I really was used to typing using Go Keyboard but I'm now practicing Swype since it would be easier to use with one hand. The main trouble I have with Swype is that it doesnt know words in my native language as its not part of the dictionary (we use the US keyboard layout), so I basically have to "teach" Swype first for some weeks.