Develop Bugs

Not quite what I was hoping...

I use my 17 inch laptop (Windows 7) all day and wondered a long time if a tablet could work as an occasional laptop replacement for conference trips, working on documents at a cafe, etc. So far, the a100 has been great for email, netflix, music, calendar, fb, and the like. But it just comes up short for Word-like functions (typing, editing, PowerPoint and pdf's). I have bought Docs To Go, trialed Quickoffice, use Kingsoft, but they are all so clumsy and awkward. I don't think the formatting is very good on any of them. I use a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard, so typing isn't really an issue, but the apps are so limited. A tablet so far just hasn't been what I hoped for, or adequate to occasionally replace my laptop in the main use I wanted it for. Other than that, for the most part, I really like the a100.
Does anyone else share my experience/perspective?
Would going to a larger tablet help (don't really want to, but would be willing to consider it)?
Any opinions??

More simply, would a larger tablet work better typing Ms Word compatible documents? Anyone have this experience?

Ptackley said:
More simply, would a larger tablet work better typing Ms Word compatible documents? Anyone have this experience?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Larger or smaller, you'll still be limited by the quirky app workarounds, at least for MS Office. You CAN use the web UI for MS Office offered through MS's SkyDrive. Works great. Still isn't exactly like a full inatll of Office but it's really close... Much closer than the 3rd party apps.
Sent from my A100 using Tapatalk

I'll leave this right here.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/103876278794381402383/posts/JM1u4aokm1t

Tx Redneck,
i went to download Onlive Desktop and it says 'Your device isn't compatible with this item'. I think it requires a 10" inch screen minimum for compression. At least that is what I read by one user.
How did you get it to work on the a100?

I downloaded the apk from the website and works nicely. A greaaaat app.

Ok, I finally downloaded it and now to learn how to use it. Thanks for the suggestion!

If you are doing a hard core word, spreadsheet or presentation editing no tablet can satisfy you even large or small even with ipad premium apps. Maybe wait till a stable windows 8 powered tablet is released.
If Im in your place and I will need to make an occationally hard core editing I'll Just leave my 17 inch laptop on and connected in the internet then I'll just use Team viewer to remotely controll it and do the editing I needed.
Sent from my A100 using Tapatalk

Gmote

Just started using this and I think it is awesome. You can use you're phone as a mouse and keyboard what is really cool is on the glide the hardware keyboard works well. You just have to instal a software on you're computer then gmote from google play. For a media center PC this rocks!
Sent from my SGH-I927 using xda app-developers app

Unified remote (pro). Does everything gmote does along with support for dragging and it keeps the connection alive in the status bar. Also it as like a billion other remotes included (notably file manager and vlc remote).

gmote allows for dragging simply press the mouse button top right then drag. Guess their are many of these out there. First 1 I try that I like is gmote but I am sure others are just as good.

Oh right. Forgot about that button. Don't get me wrong, gmotes decent. I used it for the better part of two years. I just got sick of having to reconnect to the server all the time, especially when switching from phone to tablet and back.

Good to know. I'll give it a try with my xbmc box. Sometimes I do need to go back into windows for some stuff. Otherwise I'm happy with the xbmc remote on android .
Sent from my SGH-I927

Phone My PC and Advanced TouchPad are good as well.
They auto connect to the ip address given, and the both have mouse and keyboard. Plus Phone My PC let's you see the desktop from anywhere in your home(good for keeping an eye on your kids).

Unified Remote (free) - no remotes to try, gmote - no bluetooth. Other favs?
Tyfighter said:
Unified remote (pro). Does everything gmote does along with support for dragging and it keeps the connection alive in the status bar. Also it as like a billion other remotes included (notably file manager and vlc remote).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried Unified Remote based on this recommendation, but despite showing many free remotes to try in the description, no remotes are present except for buy now.
Looked at gmote, but no bluetooth.
From what I see in the description, Phone My PC doesn't do bluetooth.
Advanced TouchPad also doesn't appear to be bluetooth, and really does appear to be touchpad focused, with only a few very plain looking keys beside it. Which is fine, just not what I'm looking for.
(First driving reason for search - Impress remote. And if one is going to go down the 'remote' path, it may as well be as flexible / capable as whatever is out there. i.e. Given the other similar apps out there, no point going for something that only does Impress.)
UPDATE CORRECTION: Free remotes are present. But if portable version loaded from a network drive, Windows won't load the .dll's - which appears to the Android user as though no remote controls are present. [Serves me right for remote controlling a machine via VNC - missed the quick .dll load failed message!]

Tried unified remote and I like it.I have infrared on my computer from a uirt and am thinking of getting the pros to control my surround sound.anyone tested that? I read it was supposed to support it but I could not find the app to learn the it codes.
Sent from my SGH-I927 using xda app-developers app

dudejb said:
Tried unified remote and I like it.I have infrared on my computer from a uirt and am thinking of getting the pros to control my surround sound.anyone tested that? I read it was supposed to support it but I could not find the app to learn the it codes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its play link is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Relmtech.Remote and contains a support pointer to http://www.unifiedremote.com/.
On their page is a Hardware link along the top, going to http://www.unifiedremote.com/hardware, at the bottom of which they show a USB-UIRT and more information. $50 + $8 S/H.
So, it would seem to be confirmed that it supports it. It talks about a forum being at http://65.36.202.170/phpBB2/. And also points to http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26 and http://www.avsforum.com/ for additional information.
'UIRT' - Universal Infrared Receiver Transmitter, so there must be an emitter in the works. The page talks about Girder (http://www.promixis.com/), $50 / $100 / $150, Standard / Pro / WHT - all Windows only.
I would guess you use Unified Remote to tell the pc to emit the codes to your equipment. I'll bet it will take time to train yourself to pick up the glide and not the remote. (Or hide them on yourself. Not sure this would help with a problem I have - perpetually picking up the wrong remote and wondering why it's not working. Only to get blasted by the radio station when I thought I was changing channels!) :laugh:
HTH.

[MOD REQUEST] Auto popup keyboard on desktop

Is there anyway to mod windows 8 so that when you are using a tablet and touch a text entry field in desktop mode the keyboard automatically pops up (even better if it auto closes when you hit enter)? This is the most annoying "feature" of Windows 8 in desktop mode, when using a touch device (tablet).

I second the motion.

This would be an excellent mod if someone would do it for us.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using XDA Premium HD app

it would be pretty sweet if someone could get the same type of auto-keyboard on desktop as in metro. it would remove 25% of my touch

I'm in for this. Even win7 has a popup feature when you put the cursor on a text box.

I might be mistaken, but I think in one of the betas the keyboard worked like that on my Acer W500, but not anymore...

SoundSurfer said:
I might be mistaken, but I think in one of the betas the keyboard worked like that on my Acer W500, but not anymore...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you are correct in one of the betas it did use to auto popup when you clicked in a text field I remember the same thing with my Samsung Slate 7 now its gone I was just wondering the same thing myself

ra2100 said:
Yes you are correct in one of the betas it did use to auto popup when you clicked in a text field I remember the same thing with my Samsung Slate 7 now its gone I was just wondering the same thing myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May this be one of that things that Microsoft disables from registry, but it's still accessible?

I'd be happy if I could get the behaviour from Windows 7 back where when I clicked on a text field there was a floating button for the keyboard next to the input.

Please... I already fixed ff w/ user chrome to make the url bar bigger and tablet friendly.
This is one of the last tweaks I need to do.
I'm sure if the feature can't be re-enabled someone can replicate launching the keyboard automatically with autohotkey?

Yes please. Can someone do this mid? Its really annoying to manually invoke and dismiss keyboard everytime in desktop mode

s_kates81 said:
Yes please. Can someone do this mid? Its really annoying to manually invoke and dismiss keyboard everytime in desktop mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Comfort Keys from http://www.comfort-software.com/ - works flawlessly but cost $20 which pisses me off to pay for something that MS should fix.

Someone over at tabletpcreview forum wrote a TIP caller that works pretty well. No auto-popup, but works much better than stock experience.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/windows-8/53956-trying-do-tabtip-caller.html

VTEChump said:
Someone over at tabletpcreview forum wrote a TIP caller that works pretty well. No auto-popup, but works much better than stock experience.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/windows-8/53956-trying-do-tabtip-caller.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried it and it's buggy - as long as it doesn't pop up automatically might as well use MS built-in one.

I second this request!

jonthe838 said:
I second this request!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This lil bit of AutoIt code works pretty well for me to automatically pop up the keyboard..
It polls the mouse cursor every 750ms to see if the cursor is an i-beam, and if so then it launches the keyboard (TabTip.exe).
Code:
While 1
$cursor = MouseGetCursor()
If $cursor = 5 Then ShellExecute('"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\TabTip.exe"')
Sleep(750)
WEnd
Simple, but seems to fulfill my immediate needs for now. Hope you find it useful as well.

Hmm, I'd never heard of autoit before. Unfortunately, it looks unlikely to run on Windows RT (at least without us getting our hands on the source...) so I wonder if there's a way to do it with one of Windows' several built-in scripting languages...

tj!2k7 said:
This lil bit of AutoIt code works pretty well for me to automatically pop up the keyboard..
It polls the mouse cursor every 750ms to see if the cursor is an i-beam, and if so then it launches the keyboard (TabTip.exe).
Code:
While 1
$cursor = MouseGetCursor()
If $cursor = 5 Then ShellExecute('"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\TabTip.exe"')
Sleep(750)
WEnd
Simple, but seems to fulfill my immediate needs for now. Hope you find it useful as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow - thanks for this! I'm not running RT (traded my Surface RT for a Samsung ATIIV running Win8 Pro that has similar goofy windows 8 issues. So I downloaded AutoIt, ran the script and viola, now my keyboard pops up just like in Windows 7. So to GoodaytoDie (and other devs) I hope you can find a way to port AutoIT to Win RT - it has already saved me many hours of frustration and I am going to donate to the AutoIt team.

docfreed said:
Wow - thanks for this! I'm not running RT (traded my Surface RT for a Samsung ATIIV running Win8 Pro that has similar goofy windows 8 issues. So I downloaded AutoIt, ran the script and viola, now my keyboard pops up just like in Windows 7. So to GoodaytoDie (and other devs) I hope you can find a way to port AutoIT to Win RT - it has already saved me many hours of frustration and I am going to donate to the AutoIt team.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did you get it to work? I've never used autoit before and couldn't get it to work so if you could just make a step by step guide for me hehe.
Would be great! Thanks

jonthe838 said:
how did you get it to work? I've never used autoit before and couldn't get it to work so if you could just make a step by step guide for me hehe.
Would be great! Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just remember that I am running Win 8, not RT.. Anyway, I downloaded and installed AutoIt 3 from the AutoIt website (autoitscript.com). Then I copied tj!2k7's script into notepad, and named it keyboard.au3 ( saved as type *.txt but with the au3 extension). Then just right click on the au3 file, open with AutoIt and it will run the script - whenever you position the cursor in a text box, i.e., you see the cursor change to an I-beam, the keyboard will pop up - it's brilliant. Ther keyboard does not autopop down but I found if you hit the enter key it disappears.

[Q] WinRT tablet as second monitor via Wifi?

Has anyone out there heard of any apps for WinRT that enable you to use the Surface or other RT tab as a second monitor via wifi? I'm thinking along the lines of DiplayLink, Air Display, MaxiVista, etc. for iPad.
I really need something like this, and if no one else is doing it, I'm going to have to put my dev shoes back on and write one. I can't beleive that this hasn't been done yet, but maybe there are some barriers on the WinRT OS side that make this tougher than I'm assuming?
Cheers.

jasonk910 said:
Has anyone out there heard of any apps for WinRT that enable you to use the Surface or other RT tab as a second monitor via wifi? I'm thinking along the lines of DiplayLink, Air Display, MaxiVista, etc. for iPad.
I really need something like this, and if no one else is doing it, I'm going to have to put my dev shoes back on and write one. I can't beleive that this hasn't been done yet, but maybe there are some barriers on the WinRT OS side that make this tougher than I'm assuming?
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please do shout if you find one - I could use that as well
//M

Id pay at least 10$ for this app- and im sure that a lot of others would be willing to do the same. Allow me to use my ipad as a 2nd monitor with my Surface - Id pay 20$

You should be able to install a virtual graphics card (similar to http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm) and then extend the virtual display it gives you over VNC to the VNC client on Windows RT.
I haven't tried/played with that, though.

netham45 said:
You should be able to install a virtual graphics card (similar to http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm) and then extend the virtual display it gives you over VNC to the VNC client on Windows RT.
I haven't tried/played with that, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This looks intriguing - but the warnings about windows 7 blue screen have me a little worried to even attempt to use it using windows 8. Id love to hear if this works - Im not willing to be the guinea pig - I had enough problems getting windows 8 to work on my Thinkpad with unsupported AMD ATI graphics drivers. As it is - I lost all of my power settings, and have no idea how to get them back - Ive seen a forum post recommend a repair installation of windows 8, but I am not confident. I have everything working, all of my software works, my RDP works, I just don't want to screw it up now.

jasonk910 said:
Has anyone out there heard of any apps for WinRT that enable you to use the Surface or other RT tab as a second monitor via wifi? I'm thinking along the lines of DiplayLink, Air Display, MaxiVista, etc. for iPad.
I really need something like this, and if no one else is doing it, I'm going to have to put my dev shoes back on and write one. I can't beleive that this hasn't been done yet, but maybe there are some barriers on the WinRT OS side that make this tougher than I'm assuming?
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have searched google and found something for code:
1.DXGI :hardware acceleratedI desktop duplication on windows 8.its really fast.http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/Desktop-Duplication-Sample-da4c696a
2.hardware acceleratedI media foundation encoder.
3.hardware acceleratedI media foundation decoder and renderer.
I know little code and I hope you can write one.that will be great.

I would love to have this option as well. Is there a way to do it via the hdmi? My pc has hdmi and vga out. I have a monitor hooked up through vga. So would I be able to put the surface in the hdmi spot or is the mini on the surface just out not in?

Droopydroors said:
I would love to have this option as well. Is there a way to do it via the hdmi? My pc has hdmi and vga out. I have a monitor hooked up through vga. So would I be able to put the surface in the hdmi spot or is the mini on the surface just out not in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's out only

Seriously need this. I would pay good $$ for an app like this. Please let us know if you make one or find one.

Let's talk about DeX

Moving from Tab S2 to S4 there were a lot of changes to get used to, some good, some bad. A good change was the S-Pen. At first I thought it was a waste of time. It was very awkward for me at first, but now I use it almost all the time.
I'm wondering if DeX is another "awkward change". I've played with DeX for a few minutes at a time on my TV with and without an external keyboard and mouse, but not much on the tablet by itself. Nothing has jumped out as superior in touchscreen / tablet mode. I'll say it does work better with a keyboard and mouse, especially for Microsoft Office products that utilize "right click". But here, I'm talking about touch screen / S-Pen, no external keyboard, mouse, or display.
Does anyone use DeX as their primary tablet mode? If so please post what you think is better for DeX vs stock Android. Why are you running in DeX!, and what are the advantages & benefits you are getting?
As an experiment, I'm going to try using the tablet in DeX mode for a week. I'm sure there will be times I have to revert to stock Android, but I'll post again next Saturday to say what I've learned.
Thanks,
Joe

I've been running SystemUI Tuner beta for about 10 days - since my Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 was upgraded to Pie. I missed the WiFi indicator. So I established permissions and had everything working. The SystemUI status app was always running because it is Samsung. In DeX, I had Moon+ Reader open but minimized, Firefox Beta downloading a file and was opening ES File Explorer when SystemUI went bat-crap crazy. It started opening instance after instance and froze the screen. After a few minutes it went blackscreen with the DeX logo. The power button wouldn't reboot it. After another 5 minutes or so,it popped up a message that SystemUI was not responding. Eventually it was able to reboot and I uninstalled SystemUI.
I'd really like to get the WiFi indicator back to the status bar, but I'm nervous to risk turning it back on. It was terrifying when I was locked an couldn't reboot. I sent an email to the SystemUI administrator.
Very scary experience only a few hours into my DeX marathon.
Joe

So I gave it up on day three. Too many things missing.
1) No widgets. We've had two thunderstorms with hail since Sunday. The AccuWeather widget is too important to miss. You can use Dex Max to float widgets over open windows, but not what I'm after.
2) No icon packs. I like my icons. My desktop wallpaper is admitantly busy - a photo of a brook in Maine. It is hard to read the white labels under the icons, and I can't see a way to change the text color.
3) Locked on the default Samsung keyboard. I'm a SwiftKey user.
4) One desktop. I'm a product development engineer at a semiconductor company. At work, I have four screens on my PC. not only does this give me the ability to have multiple open documents, it gives me four desktops. The only time I'm limited to a single desktop is when traveling with my laptop.
5) Can't use extended desktop with HDMI
6) Multiple apps have problems running in DeX without being maximized. Some of this may be due to forcing apps to resize.
7) I think there could be memory issues. When switching out of DeX, every app I used while in Dex. Would be open in the recent apps windows. After a long session there were more than 30 open apps, all that I had closed in Dex.
Anyhow, it took 2-1/2 days to lose patience.
Take care,
Joe

Yeap, the random stuck screen...I had that just recently.couldnt shut down or force shut down for some time.
Also some apps wont resize at all in DeX, which is a huge pain when watching a movie and doing emails as an example.
At this point I'm using the regular screen, bonded mode.
I like widgets.
I like my swipe up and down actions.
I like my easy to get to bluetooth and wifi toggles.
I like resizing the screens to what ever size I want.
I like minimizing process.
I hope DeX gets an update, right now its not very useful for me.
KC

DeX is not meant to enhance the tablet experience but rather provide the user with a desktop-like experience for those occasions where the user would prefer to work that way....say on a bigger screen with and external keyboard and mouse for limited business/professional applications or to develop in Linux.
Works pretty good for word processing, spreadsheets and photo editing. Media consumption, just use plain Android.

bill-e said:
Works pretty good for word processing, spreadsheets and photo editing. Media consumption, just use plain Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish I could use it for word processing, but I discovered that Word can't open two files at the same time and copy/paste from one to another. This made dex almost useless for me
Inviato dal mio SM-T830 utilizzando Tapatalk

gabripranzo said:
I wish I could use it for word processing, but I discovered that Word can't open two files at the same time and copy/paste from one to another. This made dex almost useless for me
Inviato dal mio SM-T830 utilizzando Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Libreoffice under Linux on DeX. Works great and can have many documents open.

bill-e said:
Try Libreoffice under Linux on DeX. Works great and can have many documents open.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but it's a bit complicated. I have Office 365 and I wish I could use it both at work (Windows) and when I have my tablet with dex. I think Samsung and Microsoft should work together to make android a platform which can really be used for business, which unfortunately it is not yet, even with dex.
Inviato dal mio SM-T830 utilizzando Tapatalk

I think Office on DeX is much more usable than the stock Android version. If you have a mouse. I don't understand why right-click copy / paste is anathema to stock Android. I totally agree that you should be able to open multiple documents for all the Office programs. And multiple Abobe Acrobat pdf files. It's crazy you have to open files in two different apps to have two of a type open.
Hooking up to a TV is clunky - you need the power, adaptor, bulky HDMI cable, not conveniently done. And no extended desktop. The S4 is big enough I've stopped using my laptop to remote in to my PC at work - Microsoft Remote Desktop works fine on the S4. DeX should be as good.
I've kept playing some with DeX - Desktop Browser by the same developer who does Desktop Hub, lets you open multiple browser windows - awesome feature, worth a couple-three bucks for the paid version. I may get the Pro version of Desktop Hub too, to try the start menu feature - is anyone using it? It is more expensive than the browser... $10 I think...

It has been a few months (well, more than a few months), but I have some more observations.
Quirks and oddities
So first, I now have a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. It is interesting to me that the mouse seems locked to the DeX monitor, but the keyboard is active on both the DeX monitor and tablet. I have video playing on the DeX monitor and the mouse is locked to it, but I am typing this message on a browser on my tablet. It seem the keyboard follows active input windows.
Second, I found a nice perk. So I like to read on my tablet while sports is running on the TV. Typically, this is casting the Indians onto the TV via Foxsportsgo and chromecast. Browns games are harder. To get the Browns I usually need to got to streaming sites that are stuffed with pop-ups and ad bait. The best way to get video going is to use a good ad-blocking browser, and I haven't found one with built in cast. So you either need to mirror the screen (and not run other programs) or run it on the tablet. Some video sources let you run in split screen mode, others don't. So best case I end up with the game on the top third of my tablet and the book two-thirds of the screen below. Relatedly mirroring the screen, unless things have changed, is garbage -- either casting or HDMI. Casting gives the message "not optimized for mirroring".
So I tried today connecting via DeX and running Firefox Beta with ad blockers streaming an NFL game on the TV, and reading my book on my tablet, and voila! Works well!
Let me know if anyone else has found anything new.
Joe

This all may only be interesting to me, but I'll keep posting anyways ?
So two new observations :
1) DeX for Windows does _not_ work with the Tab S4. Of course, they say it only currently works for the S10, but I tried it anyways.
2) New feature in Outlook for Android inside of DeX - you can open multiple emails in separate, independent windows. Very nice festure.
Joe