Long press on Samsung keyboard produces too many additional choices

[Bigdud01]

A long press on most (not all) of the alphabetic keys produces a window showing many gobbledegook characters in addition to the symbol I actually want. The attachment shows what I get when I long press 'A' in order to get the '@' symbol.
I don't recall this happening when I first got the phone. Seems like it started occurring some time after; probably as a result of an update.

Does anyone else have this problem and/or found a way to get rid of it?

 

[nahoku]

Both my Note 4 and Note 10.1 tablet display the same characters shown above using the stock keyboard. Both devices are still on Kitkat 4.4.4 and I've never took an update on either device. I haven't really investigated it, but it might be the font used. I haven't tried changing fonts or anything because I know the blue highlighted character is the one that will be chosen so it doesn't bother me.

 

[maclancer]

That's not an issue, its actually a feature of the keyboard. I believe it also depends on the languages and region selected.

 

[Bigdud01]

The reason it's somewhat of a nuisance is because the affected keys require two actions to complete; i.e., if I want an '@' I first have to long press 'A', then quick press the @ from the resulting list. The fact that the @ is highlighted doesn't matter, it still requires a second action. Whereas if I want an ampersand (&) I only need to take a single action on the 'H' key.

Again, I don't remember this happening at the time I first got my S5....but I've been wrong before...;-)

 

[can3gxw]

I just use the Google keyboard. It has a lot less options by default, and I can fly through with the "common" special characters pretty quick. If you want something really specialized, they are a little deeper into the options.

 

[Bigdud01]

I'll give the Google keyboard a try. Thanks!
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Just tried it. Looks great but a main feature of the Samsung keyboard appears to be missing on the Google: Hot Keys. This feature allows you to immediately insert a predefined string by long pressing a number key. Pretty handy; I thought surely it would be on the Google keyboard.

The Google offers a slightly similar solution by using the personal dictionary but it's not as handy.

 

[nahoku]

The reason it's somewhat of a nuisance is because the affected keys require two actions to complete;

I just reconfirmed that on my T-Mobile Note 10.1 tablet, the underlying symbols do not get highlighted blue, therefore, I have to do the two-action method just like you have to. On my Verizon Note 4, the underlying symbols that appears on the keys is highlighted blue, and a long press will insert the symbol automatically.

It must be either carrier or device specific or the varying implementation of this feature just plain sucks. You would think (rather hope) that using the stock keyboard would work the same across all devices. I fully understand your frustration and dismay.

 

[Bigdud01]

I just reconfirmed that on my T-Mobile Note 10.1 tablet, the underlying symbols do not get highlighted blue, therefore, I have to do the two-action method just like you have to. On my Verizon Note 4, the underlying symbols that appears on the keys is highlighted blue, and a long press will insert the symbol automatically.

It must be either carrier or device specific or the varying implementation of this feature just plain sucks. You would think (rather hope) that using the stock keyboard would work the same across all devices. I fully understand your frustration and dismay.

 

[AXEL314]

The reason it's somewhat of a nuisance is because the affected keys require two actions to complete; i.e., if I want an '@' I first have to long press 'A', then quick press the @ from the resulting list. The fact that the @ is highlighted doesn't matter, it still requires a second action. Whereas if I want an ampersand (&) I only need to take a single action on the 'H' key.

Again, I don't remember this happening at the time I first got my S5....but I've been wrong before...;-)

ATT variant here on kitkat, keyboard is produces same options with a long press. Instead of letting go of "A" and then quickly select the @ symbol, I simply need to do a long press of "A" and release it to get the same result. No extra key strokes.

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