Just wondering if anyone has tried the Xoom BT keyboard on any of the AOSP ROMs? Specifically, do all or any of the Android shortcut keys work? Or would I be better off spending less money on a generic Windows BT Keyboard?
Here is the KB I am referring to...
http://www.walmart.com/ip/MOTOROLA-89451N/15779800
I guess I'll answer my own question, more to provide information for others. I went to Fry's today and picked up one of these keyboards and was very happy to see it working with Decks Gingerbread ROM. There are some hotkeys not working right, but for the most part this this is awesome. A co-worker went with me and bought one for his Xoom and it works great on that as well! Here is a list of things that aren't working (so far).
- Menu button does not bring up the menu (but fn + F1 does).
- Things get weird in landscape mode:
-- Left/Right arrows perform Up/Down operation and Up/Down arrows perform Left/Right operations.
- Hot key for launching Google Music App (when it's set as default) fc's every time (but app does launch manually).
- When in the browser, you have to use the Search button to type in a URL (there is no way to navigate or arrow to the URL entry box).
- Seems to work much better in portrait mode.
- Have to use arrows to navigate from text box to text box, the tab key does not tab like it does in Windows.
I would love to see an app that would allow you to remap the keys, but haven't found anything in the market for this. If you know of something that would help in this regard, please post a reply.
I previously connected a Dell BT Mouse and got that working perfectly, so I can't wait to get home and use the mouse and the KB together. I am also going to try out the HDMI mirroring and see how well this will preform as a stand alone console. If any one is interested in the outcome, reply to this thread. Otherwise I'll just let it die off slowly...
Related
is there another keyboard that has arrows like the one on the bottom of the stock 2.2 keyboard? i like the stock keyboard in all but its not like the multitouch droid keyboard. i wish someone could put those arrows on that keyboard
Swype has a special editing keyboard, by swyping from the Swype key to the SYM key.
Alternatively, there's a keyboard called Full Keyboard in the market. It's not great for day-to-day typing, and doesn't have a horizontal mode, but it has all of the editing keys you could want (arrows, del, insert, etc.) as well as Ctrl+*letter* keys, making it great for SSH sessions in ConnectBot.
I've been using the demo of Smart Keyboard, available in the Market. You tap the number key twice and it brings up a screen with arrows, a delete key, Tab and and Enter key. Then you switch back by hitting the ABC key. The skin I'm using is the iPhone skin. It has small spaces between the keys. It works for me.
I really like SwiftKey the best. It not only guesses the words you're typing, but also the next word. Works really well, but no arrows.
I also found a useful little app that allows you to have a virtual trackball, called Virtual Trackball. It's useful for moving around when you're trying to edit text. It also allows for a virtual d-pad. It's in the Market and costs .99 Euro. I think it's worth it. The developer is very responsive and is adding more features. I used to have trouble with it going away when running a lot of apps, but the new update seems to have made it persist better. If it disappears, you just hold on the home key to bring up recent apps and turn it on again.
I'm coming from a phone with a trackball... a MyTouch 3G that I had kept current thanks to CyanogenMod. This is much better lol.
I used that trackball though, all the time, mostly for selecting text that I'd screwed up... or to move the cursor between words where I wanted to add a sentence. But sometimes was nice too, for moving to the next form field, or scrolling focus to the "submit" button, etc.
I'm pretty happy with my Swiftkey X keyboard - it's got an option to enable arrow keys. I'm surprised Swype doesn't? I'm used to Swype and really would like to use that.
So my question is twofold:
Any other good keyboards with either a simulated trackpad or arrow keys?
and/or...
How do you live without it? I can adapt if I know the tricks.
geolemon said:
I'm coming from a phone with a trackball... a MyTouch 3G that I had kept current thanks to CyanogenMod. This is much better lol.
I used that trackball though, all the time, mostly for selecting text that I'd screwed up... or to move the cursor between words where I wanted to add a sentence. But sometimes was nice too, for moving to the next form field, or scrolling focus to the "submit" button, etc.
I'm pretty happy with my Swiftkey X keyboard - it's got an option to enable arrow keys. I'm surprised Swype doesn't? I'm used to Swype and really would like to use that.
So my question is twofold:
Any other good keyboards with either a simulated trackpad or arrow keys?
and/or...
How do you live without it? I can adapt if I know the tricks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hackers keyboard is nice. Has the four arrows and a number row. Plus you can enlarge or reduce the keys.
The best solution I have found so far is an app called GameKeyboard. The dpad simulates the repeated keypress of a held down arrow key, or joystick (which is essential for many games).
However, it has bugs, and the qwerty mode is slow (you swipe horizontally across the keyboard to switch between gamepad mode and keyboard mode). I enable it specifically for games, and then switch back to my main keyboard (i.e. swype) for everything else.
Here's a link:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.locnet.gamekeyboard
in swype there is an arrow option. swype from the swype/option button to the sym/123 button and a arrow keypad comes up. also from sym/123 button to "f" brings up a number pad.
thumb keyboard has arrows
Hey all,
I recently acquired the Motorola Bluetooth Keyboard and Trackpad on Amazon, and it works wonderfully as an input device for my phone - an HTC One X running CyanogenMod 10.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006291K7A/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=SL75&qid=1348778343&sr=8-1
However, not all of the features work exactly as billed, and the keyboard says they are exclusive to Motorola phones - such as two-finger scrolling on the trackpad, and pinch-to-zoom in images. Also, weirdly, the menu button on the keyboard doesn't work, and there's no way to turn off tap to click.
Despite this laundry list the keyboard is serving me quite well, but I'm still curious - is there any app or flashable zip that I can use to restore the missing features to this keyboard? Surely there's no inherent reason why these things are Motorola-exclusive.
Any comments? Thanks in advance guys.
I've just bought something similar, the motorola bluetooth keyboard and mouse set for motorola Atrix. My keyboard is like yours, apart for the trackpad of course. I use it on my HTC One S and works pretty well but, as you noticed too, the menu key (the 3 horizontal parallel lines key) doesn't work, nor the mute key for me.
At first I thought those keys were nothing but a combination of search button plus a letter (like the other shortcut keys) but I've tried with every combination to no avail...
Maybe the non working features are not natively supported by android and were specifically implemented by motorola in their software?
nor-ric said:
I've just bought something similar, the motorola bluetooth keyboard and mouse set for motorola Atrix. My keyboard is like yours, apart for the trackpad of course. I use it on my HTC One S and works pretty well but, as you noticed too, the menu key (the 3 horizontal parallel lines key) doesn't work, nor the mute key for me.
At first I thought those keys were nothing but a combination of search button plus a letter (like the other shortcut keys) but I've tried with every combination to no avail...
Maybe the non working features are not natively supported by android and were specifically implemented by motorola in their software?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dunno. I wonder if any developers of Motorola ROMs can help us out...
Is there still any way to bring up the virtual keyboard under Chrome (on the new N7 at least), even when you are not on a text box element?
Some sites capture key presses to do various activities, and the inability to use the keyboard is a definite problem.
An example being ajaxterm (implements a remote terminal emulator via javascript and AJAX, quite handy going through overly restrictive firewalls), no keyboard renders the entire thing useless.
Any suggestions?
I'm not sure. The best solution I can think of off the top of my head is to use a custom rom with button mapping. You can set press and hold functions to software keys and hardware (I think).
I'd say a long press on the Recents button to pull up the IME. Typically Back(Hold) is force close, Home(Back) is Search, nothing is assigned to recents(Hold).
That or an app that sits in the notification tray that has a button for IME....
Or again, the quick notification toggles on custom Roms has an IME enable/disable, I think.
Sent from Nexus 7 FHD from XDA Premium HD
Got my Gemini on Saturday and just working my way around it.
Was looking at shortcuts for the Gemini Keyboard and found the documentation, however all shortcuts are a combination of a key labelled ? (magnifying glass) plus another key.
For the life of me I cannot find the key that is supposed to be the magnifying glass.
Anyone know which key this is supposed to be
Thanks in advance
larah said:
Got my Gemini on Saturday and just working my way around it.
Was looking at shortcuts for the Gemini Keyboard and found the documentation, however all shortcuts are a combination of a key labelled (magnifying glass) plus another key.
For the life of me I cannot find the key that is supposed to be the magnifying glass.
Anyone know which key this is supposed to be
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think those docs are for generic android with a keyboard; google has been pushing putting a "search" key directly onto keyboards.
The gemini shortcuts are mostly the "Fn" key plus another, which should be labelled. e.g. on mine (UK kbd):
ESC: "back" key, or hold down for "Power"
Fn+ESC: "power"
Fn+D: Android "home" key (desktop, not to be confused with traditional editing "home" key)
Fn+A: Android "recent" key (App switcher)
Alt+Tab: App switcher (standard android binding)
Fn+C: Volume down
Fn+V: Volume up
Fn+B: Brightness down
Fn+N: Brightness up
Fn+Alt: Phone app
Fn+Del: Settings
Fn+T: Mute microphone
Fn+R: Screenshot
etc.
Hope I am not hijacking this thread, but continued question about Fn usage
How does one get all the "strange" characters from the keyboard?
By strange, I mean stuff like "{}[]`/" and similar ones.
From the keyboard looks (symbols imprinted at the bottom of the key) I assumed its a combo of Fn+symbol, but it doesn't work.
I am using US keyboard layout and set to use Gemini keyboard as input method.
matrix200200 said:
How does one get all the "strange" characters from the keyboard?
By strange, I mean stuff like "{}[]`/" and similar ones.
From the keyboard looks (symbols imprinted at the bottom of the key) I assumed its a combo of Fn+symbol, but it doesn't work.
I am using US keyboard layout and set to use Gemini keyboard as input method.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you figure this out? I'm trying to find that out now too.
It is [Fn] +'/ ' to bring up the symbols keyboard and you can select them from there. {}[]℅™®©¥¢√π∆~ etc...
Function key
Veritas06 said:
Did you figure this out? I'm trying to find that out now too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you use the Gemini Keyboard app to configure the Gemini US English layout there is actually one more step it seems. Once you've gone through the setup you should receive a notification to configure your keyboard. Select this and select the Gemini keyboard and you will be good to go. I ignored the notification for a while, believing it was prompting me to go through the setup process again but that was not the case.
Hope this helps.