BROWSERS with keyboard navigation/features BUILT IN?

[coydroid]

Okay this is probably a long shot but here it goes anyway . . .

I'm looking for a browser with built-in PGUP PGDN HOME END buttons so that my interaction with it when reading can parole me from clumsy (and very imprecise) vertical swiping.

I'm on a nice big 10" tablet but find myself spending half my time just trying to scroll the screen accurately on reading sites such as news, blogs, articles etc.

I never appreciated how much I depend on the humble PGDN and HOME buttons (not to mention arrows, and the noble DEL key!) until I began just recently Android computing on my tablet. This is not a request for keyboard apps -- I already use the Hackers Keyboard (which I highly recommend btw, especially for older folks such as myself, who need keys they can scale and actually see) -- no, it's because I don't want to "call" the keyboard simply to scroll down one pixel-perfect screen page at a time to seamlessly read HTML pages and their like.

Ideally I would like these to be stationary in the menu bar itself to avoid things popping up, dropping down, floating etc. Is this too much to ask for given the platform we're on do you think? I tried Mobile Firefox (wow, what a disappointment) so I think I'll just ask you experts before I go downloading & installing browsers randomly.

I like the Native Android browser, it's just a misery to navigate with when reading anything lengthy. Thanks guys!

cd

 

[Mr. Lucky]

What you are describing is not fixable in the browser. By design, the soft keyboard only appears on demand. Since you already have Hacker's Keyboard, I think the only way you will improve on the situation is to use an external keyboard (which by definition, is "always there") or try using a stylus and see if you have better accuracy than finger swiping.

 

[coydroid]

What you are describing is not fixable in the browser. By design, the soft keyboard only appears on demand. Since you already have Hacker's Keyboard, I think the only way you will improve on the situation is to use an external keyboard (which by definition, is "always there") or try using a stylus and see if you have better accuracy than finger swiping.

You're giving very little credit to the engineering that goes into a browser! Look, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you Mr. Lucky, but . . . the keyboard can only extrapolate a PGDN command from whatever dimensions the browser has first defined for it, not the other way around. If you doubt that, just try to "resize" a physical piece of keyboard hardware.

Now I don't doubt that to-date no browser has been engineered to be an HTML READER'S BROWSER for tablets, but the real question is Why. As I've just explained, I don't buy that a keyboard -- any keyboard, plugged-in, called, popped-up, pulled down, docked, or otherwise -- is anything more than an interpreter of screen properties defined by something else. Certainly I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

This sounds like a candidate for the Apps Wishlist. I can't be the only tablet user out there who would gratefully devote a few pixels of browser menu-bar real estate for the luxury of vertically advancing her HTML page by precisely one page, instead of the manual scrolling we are limited to by a crude swipe.

cd

 

[Rukbat]

A browser could be written to have a few navigation keys fixed somewhere. I'm betting that none will be. Why? Most apps are written by young pups. I seriously doubt that there are many programmers who remember Kruschev pounding his shoe, let alone the excitement of VE Day. (I remember both, as much as I remember anything these days.) Once their reflexes and eyes get "broken in" (or is that just "broken"?), they'll also be asking for 1/2" square keys.

 

[coydroid]

But then came tablets.

And I assure you the author of the Hacker Keyboard wasn't nearly as cynical as you, for I'm typing with the very ((1/2" keys)) his young mind saw fit to accomodate, God bless 'im!