Ultra keyboard: tips and favorite skins?

[lesliegodwin]

I love the Ultra keyboard, but there are so many ways to customize it (a pretty good problem to have!) and a variety of skins in the Market.

I was wondering how you guys use this, and what skins are your favorite.

I also would love a way to type in Spanish occasion, so would love to know if there is an easy way to set up a button or something to switch to Spanish.

Thanks for any tips!

 

[BinaryBulge]

I love the Ultra keyboard, but there are so many ways to customize it (a pretty good problem to have!) and a variety of skins in the Market.

I was wondering how you guys use this, and what skins are your favorite.

I also would love a way to type in Spanish occasion, so would love to know if there is an easy way to set up a button or something to switch to Spanish.

Thanks for any tips!

Well, I'm the developer of this keyboard, but I definitely use it, so I can give you my 2 cents.

The easiest way to switch to Spanish without jumping through too many hoops is to click the dictionary button on the tool bar, then click Spanish. You can also set up swipe gestures to switch dictionaries, though:

Go into the Ultra Keyboard settings, under Gestures. Pick a gesture you want to use to switch dictionaries, for example, "Right" (so you swipe right to switch). Next, scroll down and under Available Items, click on Dictionaries. Choose all the dictionaries you would like to cycle through when you use that gesture (for example, English and Spanish). Now go back to the keyboard and test it out. Swiping right should toggle between English and Spanish dictionaries. It will show some pop up text when this happens.

As for skins, I'm just using the default. I hope to have something really neat in the next version, though, that someone suggested: the ability to share your themes over the internet with other users (you create your skins in Ultra and upload them to share with other users or have them rated by your peers). Of course that means I have to set up a website, but I think it would be pretty damn cool.

 

[kegacide]

hmm this ultra keyboard, it has a swype type ability? does it also have a microphone key in the swype type mode?

 

[BinaryBulge]

hmm this ultra keyboard, it has a swype type ability? does it also have a microphone key in the swype type mode?

Yes. On Ultra, I call it "Tracing", for obvious reasons (don't want to infringe on their copyright). It's not enabled by default, but you can turn it on by clicking the Keyboard button in the tool bar, and choosing "Enable Tracing".

There's also a Microphone/speech button in the tool bar.

Feel free to grab the free trial on the market. It's full featured, but will only last 24 hours before it starts showing demo notices.

 

[kegacide]

ok got the demo and will play with it, so far so good... if it works out i'll buy the full copy

 

[BinaryBulge]

ok got the demo and will play with it, so far so good... if it works out i'll buy the full copy

Awesome, thanks! Let me know if you have any trouble with it. Feel free to let me know here, or through the email that's listed on the product page.

 

[kegacide]

just for your own feedback, im liking it all, like the punctuation and suggestions better than shapewriter... like the microphone listed there especially... one thing shapewriter did that was nice is if you make a mistake on a word and keep going, when you go back to that word and click on it it brings back up the suggestions menu... with Ultra you have to start typing again to bring that up

 

[BinaryBulge]

just for your own feedback, im liking it all, like the punctuation and suggestions better than shapewriter... like the microphone listed there especially... one thing shapewriter did that was nice is if you make a mistake on a word and keep going, when you go back to that word and click on it it brings back up the suggestions menu... with Ultra you have to start typing again to bring that up

I know there are some things that I can do better with tracing, which is still a young feature (Ultra is 5.0... Tracing is more like 1.0). Ultra does attempt to make it easier to fix words you've already typed. You should be able to move the cursor to the end of previous words, which will bring the suggestions box back up and allow you to edit the word. Also, try double-clicking on existing words (which can admittedly be frustrating if your fingers are bigger than the words!).

 

[kegacide]

ahh yes double clicking worked great, thanks... and im glad your here if i have any questions like that, haha...

 

[steelersmb]

Just tried this out and I really like the keyboard but deciding between this and Swift. I really like Swift because of the predictability of words. Sometimes I only have to do a few clicks to get a complete sentence so it saves a lot of key strokes. I like Ultra Keyboard because of all the options and the toolbar. I also love the cursors at the bottom.

 

[Crodley]

I'm typing this out on the ultra keyboard now and so far, with "tracing" enabled it's working well. I'm used to using slideit and it is taking some time to Get used to it. Two things though, first with slideit when I slide a word and it's the wrong word,I can hit delete and the whole word will be deleted. With ultra I have to delete the word one letter at a time.
Secondly, when I drop down the word suggestion list and the word isn't there, out of habit I'll hit my back key which will actually close the chat window.
One of the good things it does better than slideit is use and capitalize single letter words much better.
Something else I just noticed on my evo is that in landscape mode the keyboard fills the whole screen and I can't see what I have just typed. OK, just ONE more thing, with trace enabled in portrait mode it works fine, when I switch to landscape the trace is turned off.

 

[lesliegodwin]

Great app! Thanks for response!!
Leslie

 

[steelersmb]

I tried to like this keyboard as it has so many options but I just miss the predictability of Swift. Swift speeds up typing a lot.

 

[BossDj]

Binary, love your keyboard, been using it since the day i got my Galaxy S. Have had one small problem, when I have suggestions enabled, and am using the tracing function, it force closes every time. If I turn off suggestions, no more force close, but no more tracing either. Any suggestions?

 

[kegacide]

I'm typing this out on the ultra keyboard now and so far, with "tracing" enabled it's working well. I'm used to using slideit and it is taking some time to Get used to it. Two things though, first with slideit when I slide a word and it's the wrong word,I can hit delete and the whole word will be deleted. With ultra I have to delete the word one letter at a time.
Secondly, when I drop down the word suggestion list and the word isn't there, out of habit I'll hit my back key which will actually close the chat window.
One of the good things it does better than slideit is use and capitalize single letter words much better.
Something else I just noticed on my evo is that in landscape mode the keyboard fills the whole screen and I can't see what I have just typed. OK, just ONE more thing, with trace enabled in portrait mode it works fine, when I switch to landscape the trace is turned off.

one thing with the delete for the entire word, just hold it down for a second and the keyboard will do that... another thing is the settings, you can tell it to run the trace mode in landscape alone or portrait alone, or both...

 

[VinniePaz]

Great keyboard but having a problem with the word suggestion. When in portrait mode I have no problem, but in landscape it will start out find but after typing a word or two it disappears and only shows the toolbar. Like I said no problem in portrait mode as its always there, but I do a lot of typing in landscape, and suggestion how to make it stay up all the time I'm typing?

EDIT - Its seems to only do it when I'm typing in the Marketplace as I'm having no problem with it with text messages. Weird.

 

[sKIp_E]

Hey Binary,

I've noticed that the trace option is there everywhere, except when I'm in the browser address bar, it goes back to a normal single letter typing keyboard...Is there a way to turn this off?

Also with Swype, if I added a word like an email address: john.smith@hotmail.com then traced over where all those characters are, it'd bring up the email address. Is there a way to implement this on your trace?

Great product, and I'm glad I purchased it.

Regards

 

[MikiBee]

I noticed that too... tracking/tracing doesn't work in the browser (dolphin). I thought I was doing something wrong.

Took me forever to realize I can type contractions without tracing over the apostrophe. So far I love this keyboard. So much more reliable than swype.

 

[Thefoodman52]

Man.... thought there was a trial. Oh well, I'll pirate it real quick to give it a spin. Be right back with my first analysis!

-edit-
Nvm, found the trial in the market. Derp.

-double edit-

From using it (a couple paragraphs now, not too bad really) the only complaint I have is the dictionary is a bit weird compared to the stock HTC keyboard. The multitouch is true full on though, and I love that! I do believe you, sir, have earned my $2.79!

 

[IcedTC]

Great keyboard, A+

 

[Thefoodman52]

Been using it for a day now, I have to say this keyboard isn't half bad! However, here's a minor problem I've found. When double tapping on a word to highlight it, especially here, it causes the phone to freak out a lot of times, where it just starts highlighting the word you tapped, rapid fire like, and the only way to make it stop, is to just hit backspace, and wait about 8 seconds while it 'calms' down, I'll say.

Aside from that, I love it a TON! Not many/any things it can't be made to do. I would like to see a microphone button on-keyboard instead of only on the tool bar. It works fine, its just a little bit of a hassle to get to.

-edit-

I absolutely LOVE the editor! It brings that oh so fabled and desired iPhone style cursor selection ability on top of the on screen arrows. Works just like out of a dream, and exactly how it should.

To the godly figure who made this keyboard, I love you. This keyboard is everything I've ever needed in a virtual keyboard. The tracing isn't quite as good as swype, but its almost perfect. Keep up working on it, that's about all that needs work. That and the option for a microphone button on the keyboard.

 

[DaGoTTi]

nice app. you will be getting my 2 bucks soon. just gotta get use to this swype or trace technology.

 

[WitchyKitty]

Great keyboard. I've tried many including swype and this is my absolute favorite! Just went to the marketplace to buy. Thanks for a great product!

 

[mistrrhappy]

Somehow got stuck in Caps AND Underline mode, can't figure how to turn it back off. Pressing SHIFT in various combinations doesn't seem to work. Moronic, yes. Still problematic. Really like Ultra though.

 

[dabicho]

I like this keyboard.
But I don't know how gestures work.
Most of the times it detects keypress/tracing instead of a gesture.
My biggest gripe is it takes long for me to switch a dictionary.
Other problem is sometimes it does not detect a trace and instead thinks I am typing a key.