Text entry

[moonsbabe]

Just wanted to let everyone know how much I love my Eris now that I have played all weekend! Bet ya'll missed me! Ok now on to the reason for the post...I just wanted to know what keyboard everyone uses for texting? I learned on the phonepad to text with T9. I was very excited to see the option to use that virtual keypad to text. I am much faster on it than on the qwerty for sure!! Love love love this phone!!

 

[Mistress_Otep]

wow i didn't know you could do that, i've just been practicing my qwerty. (this is my first qwerty phone AND first touch phone ! and i've never understood how people can use T9 >< i just can't handle it!

 

[moonsbabe]

Well if you learn with T9 then you don't want anything else. My husband hates it. My son hates it too. Both of them are qwerty kinda guys.

 

[thetomlin2]

This is my first smart phone, I have used T9 in the past. I have had my eris for a month now and have gotten used to the QWERTY for texting. I am just as fast on that now than I was on the T9.

 

[hrbib21]

T9 is great for one hand typing (you shouldn't be doing this while driving) but since I came from an ENV2, it's qwerty all the way for me.

 

[W4LLY]

I hate T9.

 

[colornshape]

IFirst, I sort of love this phone.

I, too, am a T9 user. I've found the T9 with the Eris to be usable, but inferior to that on my old SonyEricsson flip phone.

There is some programming blunder that allows multiple letters to be capitalized at the beginning of sentences, and I still haven't figured out how to efficiently do... it does't know the word apostrophes???

ALso, it tries to add the letter "S" to many words, then I have to select the suggestion and then manually delete the ess.

Most egregious, though, is the fact that T9 is unavailable in many instances, like when I use the search softkey, which is a real shame, because if it were't rendered useless by that error, that softkey would be quite useful.

Anybody else notice these things, and more importantly, anybody know it there are any solutions?

BTW, I thought it was funny that another poster said she or he couldn't understand how anyone could use T9 (I paraphrased). I feel the very same way about qwerty layouts on phones.

The word "Qwerty" is easier to type on my computer.

Matt

 

[moonsbabe]

Ok going to show my age here....I took typing in high school. Nowadays it is called keyboarding or something like that. I learned to type on a typewriter that had no letters printed on the keys. So puter keyboard is very easy for me. But last time I checked you can't hold both hands over a qwerty keyboard on a phone. So much easier for me to use the phonepad keypad and T9. OMG I feel old!!

 

[colornshape]

I learned to type the old fashioned way, on a Texas Instruments computer running PeachText. I agree that qwerty keyboards were never intended to be used with one or two thumbs. In fact, as we all know, it was meant to slow the typist to keep the strike arms of mechanical typewriters (that word can be found in the top row of a qwerty keyboard) from getting stuck together.

It just seems to make a lot more sense to have al the letters confined to eight keys for thumb typing. PHOne qwerty is just another example, I suspect, of something that seemed cool at first gaining a foothold for no other reason.

 

[Slugdoc]

Where's that clinically proven to minimize finger excursion Dvorak keyboard?

My Apple //c had a QWERTY/DVORAK toggle

 

[colornshape]

HAVe you looked for a dvorak skin in the market?

 

[hrbib21]

Ok going to show my age here....I took typing in high school. Nowadays it is called keyboarding or something like that. I learned to type on a typewriter that had no letters printed on the keys. So puter keyboard is very easy for me. But last time I checked you can't hold both hands over a qwerty keyboard on a phone. So much easier for me to use the phonepad keypad and T9. OMG I feel old!!

Then you aren't the only "old" person here...

 

[hrbib21]

I learned to type the old fashioned way, on a Texas Instruments computer running PeachText. I agree that qwerty keyboards were never intended to be used with one or two thumbs. In fact, as we all know, it was meant to slow the typist to keep the strike arms of mechanical typewriters (that word can be found in the top row of a qwerty keyboard) from getting stuck together.

It just seems to make a lot more sense to have al the letters confined to eight keys for thumb typing. PHOne qwerty is just another example, I suspect, of something that seemed cool at first gaining a foothold for no other reason.

Someone familiar with typing would be pretty proficient with it considering the keys are all in the same place. Yes, I'm using my thumbs but the thought process is still the same.

 

[colornshape]

Yes, and I'm sure tIat is the case for many, though not for me. My thumb has no idea where the keys my fingers know so well dwell on a qwerty. I admit it is impressive how the phone seems to read my mind while in qwerty mode, though.

I just hope flip phones endure and keep alive my most often used method of communication.

T9 forever!!

Matt.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm using shapewriter. At least during the free trial. It actually works pretty well! I haven't tried driving while using it though.

 

[colornshape]

um... while driving? That sounds like a bad idea.

 

[megapanda]

I don't know why I was so attracted to the Blackberry Pearl ever, but in final months of that thing, I was getting so annoyed with whatever they want to call that keyboard, I just referred to it as half-assed qwerty keyboard. I really would have gone back to T9 after it started always changing "I'm" to "um" but having a full keyboard and a touch screen now changes my mind on that one.

 

[DroidDO]

I'm using the compact qwerty keyboard. Most people think i'm nuts for using this, but my last 2 phones were a blackberry Storm, and a Pearl. The pearl only had the compact qwerty keys, and the Storm (when it was first released) let you choose between compact qwerty or T9 in portrait mode.

In fact, the reason I ended up with an Eris was because the Droid does not have a compact qwerty keyboard, and the apps (better keyboard) don't work as well as the keyboard built into the Eris.

In the end, we use what we are comfortable with.

 

[J.R.]

I've been going back and forth between all three of them, and can use them all proficiently. But I usually start to get annoyed with one and switch to another for a while. I'm currently using the compact qwerty.

I also get really annoyed with the predictive text feature. As was said earlier, it wants to add "s" to the end of a lot of words that I am not trying to pluaralize so I manually have to select the unpluralized word--very frustrating!!!!!

 

[LiquidC]

Back to something that Colorn said:

"Most egregious, though, is the fact that T9 is unavailable in many instances, like when I use the search softkey, which is a real shame, because if it were't rendered useless by that error, that softkey would be quite useful."

This is a huge problem for me, as I love T9 on a phonepad. scary how few post on this issue there are. anyway, whots, uh, the deal?

A fix on the horizon?

any other apps out there that you can recommend? Is there a touchpal for Android? Swype?

 

[colornshape]

I've been going back and forth between all three of them, and can use them all proficiently. But I usually start to get annoyed with one and switch to another for a while. I'm currently using the compact qwerty.

I also get really annoyed with the predictive text feature. As was said earlier, it wants to add "s" to the end of a lot of words that I am not trying to pluaralize so I manually have to select the unpluralized word--very frustrating!!!!!

I noticed that, too. I turned off word completion and that seems to have made typing a LOT LOT less frustrating. Still wish it wouldn't capitalize consecutive letters. Apostrophes (either I'm an idiot and spelled that wrong, or this phone doesn't now that word) are badly done, too. I'o?? Every time!

Matt

 

[LiquidC]

Regarding the lack of Predictive Text or XT9 on certain applications: I contacted google with the following bug report:

- Steps to reproduce the problem.

Verizon Droid Eris (stock, 1.5 i think): tap the magnifying glass to search
the web. use the 9-key phonepad method of text input.

- What happened.

"XT9" text input is locked. only "ABC" or "abc" available.

- What you think the correct behavior should be.

All android applications and functions that accept text input should
support XT9 predictive texting for the 9-key phonepad and compact-qwerty


The google folks said the following:

"Android does not contain a T-9 input method by default. Please report this bug to HTC, owners of that particular piece of software."

And then HTC said the following:

"Hello Ben

Thank you for contacting HTC technical support about the abc/xt9 being greyed out.

I have checked on this for you and found that is how the device is set up when using these areas on the apps. There is no way of changing this and I do apologize for that. When entering google searches and also browser addresses predictive text is not available for input.

If you have any other questions feel free to reply. You may also enjoy www.htcwiki.com, our customer-based forum, which has a plethora of information on HTC devices. I would also like to invite you to participate in a customer satisfaction survey located at HTC Online Survey. I hope you have a great day!

HTC Technical Support
Victor"


So yeah. looks like some of us are just outta luck

 

[colornshape]

This is one of those deals that just stops a person in his tracks, dumbfounded. What an enormously inconvenient mistake. I'll keep the Eris because I paid for it, but I can't imagine ever buying or recommending an HTC product again.

Maybe it was deliberate, and the programmers somehow thought the user would prefer multitap in those situations.

Fine, but forcing a preference on someone, especially when there seems to be no reason to not just set it to default to that preference while preserving the user's ability to decide for her or himself, is an impossible choice for me to understand or justify.

Also, how can something that's part of a program be impossible to correct? I don't know much, but is there truly nothing that can be done? It's okay if Viet is treated rhetorically, I really don't expect an answer.

Matt

 

[LiquidC]

My reply to HTC:

"Make Predictive Text available on all applications. There is a way of changing this. You can do it! Show all the forum goers and myself what you can do!"

 

[Needsdecaf]

Ok going to show my age here....I took typing in high school. Nowadays it is called keyboarding or something like that. I learned to type on a typewriter that had no letters printed on the keys. So puter keyboard is very easy for me. But last time I checked you can't hold both hands over a qwerty keyboard on a phone. So much easier for me to use the phonepad keypad and T9. OMG I feel old!!

I can use both hands on the landscape QWERTY keyboard. And sometimes the portrait one, but not so well.