I have a stock E4GT. While entering words with Swype is great, unless I am missing something, I am finding editing already-entered text (in web fields, in the email app, in the gmail app, etc.) really annoying. Sometimes I get the annoying giant copy/paste/etc. toolbar which covers up most of the text field, making scrolling in it difficult. Sometimes, I can't move the cursor to a given location, either because the device insists on selecting a whole word rather than just moving the cursor or because for some reason things don't show up on the right line. The on-screen keyboard has no arrow keys for precise positioning. Often (especially in the email app) when I tap on a word further up and then try to tap on one of Swype's alternatives for it, the alternative doesn't replace the word I tapped, but occurs in some fairly random spot in the text field. Zooming in would help, but typically I can't zoom while editing a text field.
I really, really miss the ease and precision of editing text on the resistive screens of my Palms with a stylus, with an on-screen keyboard that has arrow keys (I used myKbd, which I wrote). Swype beats the Palm on-screen keyboard (but maybe not the Treo thumbboard) for speed of entry (and the Palm TX had some infamous hardware-based digitizer problems), but correcting stuff on the E4GT is really annoying.
Am I the only person who writes lengthy, thought-out emails?
Enough griping.
Question: Is there anything I can do to make editing text less painful?
Will ICS fix this? Is there some app, perhaps a root-requiring one, that improves text field editing?
Related
I just came to PPC from a long history of Palm devices with a Palm Treo 650 as my most recent one. I got used to a really fast and efficient although less aesthetic interface that allowed me to enter appointments and generally any data pretty fast. Applications like Agendus or Adarian Money allowed me almost zero-time operation when entering contact info, appointments or payments. I must say that I am disappointed with my Samsung i780, specifically the way it works with text fields.
On the Palm,
- starting to write in a text field or starting a sentence after a period and a pause would make the first letter capital
- on fields with numbers and time, i wouldnt have to push the FN key to enter numbers, that would be automatic depending on the field i am in
I am not sure if there is anything that can be done with the overall interface of PPC, it tends to be less clear and less straight-forward also thanks to colors and various effects compared to Palm. Any advice from those that made a similar switch? Any interface apps that could make information on PPC more clear and understandable?
Any advice appreciated.
Is there anyways to make the part of the screen where the text your typing can me made to be larger. As I am typing a new text, you can only see one line maybe before it scrools out of view. Most of the screen is showing the text you aleady have read or seen. You know what I mean? Thanks.....
You're probably talking about the text messaging field in the unified communications screen. I don't know about enlarging that text window, but here's a suggestion. Use the default messaging app. Don't go into the threaded messages window, just use Compose New. It doesn't look as pretty, but you get a large field to see the text you're typing and it launches faster.
That seems to be an inconvenience, having to do "compose new mail" each and every time to respond to a text. It seems there would be a way to make that window larger and the other smaller. I'm no programmer by no means, but I have seen these guys do a lot more complex things for our devices.
Hey desire fans
I've been wondering if it's possible to use desire's optical track pad more like a trackball on nexus one - not like the link-to-link jump but to get normal cursor for selecting text etc.
Does anybody think that would work?
if you are using sense then you can simply hold down on text you want to select, a magnifying glass will even appear for precision, and you can then extend your selection with 2 large arrows - pretty simple there
if you are not using sense (froyo i presume) then in a browser or gmail etc go to menu -> more and select text, you can then move your trackpad and it will be displayed as a cursor in which you can select text
hope this helps
If you mean when editing or entering text, you can do the following on the Desire (or probably any Sense UI phone with a trackpad):
gently swipe left / right / up / down over the trackpad to move the text cursor,
long-press (click) the trackpad to pop-up a menu with several options (select all, copy all, start selecting text, paste, etc),
after choosing "select text", the text cursor will slightly alter its appearance, and then swiping in any direction will create an expanding text selection; long-press it once more to perform Copy or Cut operations with the selected text, or to simply stop selecting text in case you changed your mind.
As the previous poster said you can usually select text using touch screen actions as well, but using the trackpad can be more accurate or just plain easier.
Enjoy
Thanks guys!
It'll make my life easier!
Ultimately what I'm looking for is just to get a normal mouse cursor - it's not just about selecting&typing in text - you can do so much more...
Is it possible to flash nexus one rom to desire? Would track pad start working as trackball then?
Basically having the issue on FaceBook but it has cropped up in other spots as well.
Currently using Gingerbread Keyboard.
The issue is that in both horizontal and vertical, the space provided within which to type something is so darn narrow top to bottom that after the first line of text, I can't see what I'm typing, maneuver the cursor, etc.
Am I missing something or is that just the way it is?
Hi there
Just got my galaxy note 8 and loving it so far! Just one thing I cannot quite work out in S-Note (perhaps it is obvious but I've searched everywhere and it eludes me!)
If I create a text box using the handwriting-to-text productivity tool, and write something in it, it converts it to text. All fine so far.
but if I leave the text box and go do something else (like add a nice chart next to it), and then want to add more text to it or edit the textbox, I only seem to be able to do it using the text entry mode (i.e. with the keyboard).
I have tried having the box selected in the text mode, and then switch to the handwriting-to-text mode, but the textbox loses focus. And if I'm in handwriting-to-text mode and try to click on it to get it in focus, it doesn't work and instead creates a brand new textbox on top of it.
So basically: how do I edit a pre-existing textbox in handwriting-to-text mode??
I'm sure (I hope) that i'm missing something very obvious. Many thanks for your help!
Excellent, thank you!
I have the exact same issue!
If I'm writing in a box with "handwriting recognition" enabled and lift my pen / hand for a second and than return to continue writing where I left off, I can't figure out how to do it.... please look at the screenshot I made. It's in german, but what it says is basically "whenever I lift my hand and continue writing afterwards a new text box is created"
Any help would be appreciated!
Regards,
Yoko
Instead of using handwriting recognition from productivity tool just use handwriting from keyboard, it works even better for me and is available system wide. You should be able to go back to text box and continue.
Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk HD
Ok after a lot of fiddling, i think I have the solution!
Go into text productivity mode, then long-press the textbox you want to edit. The context menu should pop up. Press again in the box to make the context menu go away, and you should now have the cursor in the textbox and still be in text productivity mode.
A bit convoluted but works.