chistery

I've been using the HTC keyboard on my Galaxy, but like other users, I find it less responsive on the right hand side of the screen, or I press a number and it selects the wrong button, even though my finger isn't anywhere near that button.

I have got Better Keyboard as well, but can't seem to get used to it.

So, what keyboard do you use and why? I want a find a new T9 keyboard that works well ideally!

TIA.

KlaymenDK

I have been switching between the standard keyboard for English-language input, and the "Scandinavian keyboard" with a Danish dictionary for native input, but in all cases my accuracy has been appalling.

I have heard much good about "Better Keyboard" but have never been able to try it, because the paid Market is not available for me. I've also tried AnysoftKeyboard but ditched it again because native input (æøå characters) was a problem.

Recently I switched to the "HTC keyboard" (nice that such a hack is possible), and have found it more accurate, and hence faster, to work with. Still, it's nowhere near the accuracy and speed of (handwriting on) my old Treo.

Ideally I'd like something not completely unlike the HTC keyboard, but with a Norwegian Dvorak layout (standard Dvorak with slight changes to include æøå), but I haven't found any keyboard yet that would allow me to create my own layouts.

__________________

Last edited by KlaymenDK; 12-21-2009 at 10:19 AM.

informale

HTC keyboard has a calibration feature found under Touch Input settings. Try playing with it.

And yes, my favourite kbd is HTC Touch Input. )

Last edited by informale; 12-21-2009 at 06:06 AM.

ch424

I've used TouchPal, the HTC one, the built-in android one and the Samsung one in the IK4 firmware. The IK4 one is very responsive, but my favourite is definitely the HTC. If TouchPal handled adding words the same way as the HTC keyboard and was a bit more responsive, that would be my favourite though!

chistery

Do the HTC keyboard users have problems with the right side of the keyboard? I've tried calibration? Is there any evidence that it actually does anything?

Can you calibrate in T9 mode? Maybe that's why it doesn't do much as it's doing it for the qwerty one.

Last edited by chistery; 12-21-2009 at 06:21 AM.

informale

It does. Just try "miss-calibrating" it and you'll see ))) For me the calibration only makes things worse.

Rastaman-FB

i use better kb with the iphone skin (not cos i like iphone but because its a nice visual and easy to see)

screaminbug

I use AnysoftKeyboard. It's fast, responsive and it supports multitude of layouts:
Keyboards & Dictionaries: Latin (QWERTY, DVORAK, AZERTY, Colemak), Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, Lao, Bulgarian, Finnish/Swedish, Swiss, German, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Belorussian, Ukrainian.

Here is the QR-code for you to scan (if you're lazy like me )

MichaelW

I liked TouchPal, for me it's a close run thing between that and the HTC one.

legendary1022

TouchPal FTW

mvnjpy

where do you get these keyboards? touchPal and HTC Keyboard? the market?

informale

HTC Keyboard is not officially distributed for obvious reasons ) You will have to find it, but that's not hard, just google "htc_ime".

TouchPal is supposed to be in the Market, but I do not see it there, either because it's not available in the UK or because Google has not completely whitelisted the IK4 firmware that I'm using.

There's couple of dozens of keyboards in the Market. Just search "keyboard".

Last edited by informale; 12-22-2009 at 09:46 AM.

n8schicht

I also prefer TouchPal since 4 months now or so, it's my favorite.
@informale: You can't find TouchPal any more because Cootek took it off the market. Version 1.0 was like a test for them and since November or so it's gone. However they want to release a new version this month (which I doubt, I think we will see it in January).

lazarus101

TouchPal is bundled with the T-Mobile Pulse and they have some sort of contractual agreement not to release it on the Market for some time.
TouchPal is my favourite keyboard also, it is a bit slow though and there's no space between keys so it takes some time to get used to it

Naruvam

Found htc_ime nice keyboard tnx for the tip. Lol it's way way better than samsungs keyboard that comes with K4

arielf

I've had my galaxy for over 3 months now and still can't seem to get used to any of these virtual keyboards. Some of them are good in terms of interface, usability but are lacking multilanguage input. This is a great downside for most people, i guess.
Touchpal was multilanguage (only limited to english,german, french and chinese at the moment). AnysoftKeyboard seems to be the only one fully supporting many languages. However, when writing in spanish using special chars(such as á, é or ñ) the sms seems to be more limited in size plus i've been told by friends the message is illegible sometimes.

Is the use of special chars limiting the size of a standard sms? Has anybody experienced this issue with illegible messages on the other end?

Rastaman-FB

i would imagine the encoding for certain letters would be different than the standard utf-8
also if its displaying differently it may well be that the recipients do not have phones that support that language

screaminbug

The size of SMS is always 140B. When message contains GSM chars only (it's like ASCII, but not quite), then you can write 160 chars in one message (because the size of one char is 7 bit). When you use chars outside of the GSM standard or extended charset, then typically the entire message is encoded in Unicode (1 char is now 16 bit long), hence reducing the max number of chars to 70. Message is illegible to recipient if his or her device doesn't support Unicode.

cryingfreeman

slidetype keyboard on portrait mode

sometimes better keyboard

Xenon

I'm using the standard keyboard as others I tried have proven too slow.
One thing I noticed in IK4 firmware is that I now have an animation when
the keyboard pops up or closes. How can I turn that off? I didn't notice
it while I was on H8 which means that it was either added later, or that
it was always there but everything is much slower now so I notice it.

Another thing I find frustrating with the on-screen keyboard is that it can't
keep up with quick typing. If I press two keys in rapid sequence the software
seems to detect it (they enlarge) but then probably decides that the time
between presses was too short, perhaps accidental, and thus discards one or
both presses.

It is annoying to type everything in correctly and have it not appear on the
screen because I typed too fast!

martino

Where did you guys get the .apk(s) from? I searched and just found ones for Donut.

Naruvam

Google

martino

...

Thanks for the very helpful information... :V

James Bell

Seriously where? There's no harm in posting a link. I tracked down two different htc_ime.apk files and neither worked on my K4 firmware phone (constant force close). If you have a working htc_ime on the galaxy, post it's location please, please, please. Or send me a message and get it to me, then *I'll* post it someplace public.

James Bell

Third try was a charm, I found the files here: http://files.getdropbox.com/u/1002975/ANDROID/Tastiera%20T9%20Samsung%20Galaxy.zip

Naruvam

I thik this should be cupcake htc_ime
HTC_IME.apk

mrbrdo

I'm quite satisfied with the new IK4 keyboard, but it's still not as responsive as I'd like it to be. The HTC one was way too slow for me.

James Bell

I have to say I'm hooked on the HTC one. Seems quick enough to me and adds new words automatically. When I just don't even look at the results and type like crazy, it gets it right 9 words out of 10.

A great advert for them too, if they is how they customize Android all the way through I will probably like their phones.

androidguru007

Hi Chistery,

I am currently using Swype on my Droid. I am not sure if that is yet support on your device. Though its the best keyboard ever for Android. Swype has not been officially released yet, but a leaked version can be found with instruction on how to use it at: Swype Keyboard for Android

Things to remember before trying it out:
- Check if your device is supported
- This is unofficial leaked software. So step on it on your own risk

__________________
Enjoy,
AndroidGuru007
Android will eat up the Smart Phone Market grrrrr!!!
Android Apps & software 4 u

informale

This particular leaked package is not compatible with Galaxy due to the difference in the screen resolution with Droid.

androidguru007

Even if the leaked package is not compatible with Galaxy that does not mean the final release one would not. There still a big hope the official one will support many more devices than the leaked one. Its something to look forward for though .

informale

I know. I just said that to save people time. This particular package does not work. That's it )

androidguru007

Hi informale,

Thanks for the follow up & in my last message all I was targeting is to get people to wait for the final release. I did not mean to pick on you or anything .

Have a great day.

cryingfreeman

swype keyoard is something like shapewriter keyboard?
shapewriter was one of first alternative keyboards for android

ShapeWriter Keyboard vShapeWriter 2.1.0 Application for Android | Tools

informale

Yeah, looks similar.

Last edited by informale; 01-03-2010 at 04:44 PM.

androidguru007

Hi cryingfreeman,

It seems very similar to ShapreWriter, though I never had tried ShapreWriter yet. Thanks for the note.