Do you like the slide out keyboard?

dwaynewilliams#WN

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I have had my D2G for about a week and a half and I have to say that the physical keyboard is a winner. I'm not as fast as I once was on my BlackBerry Bold 9000, but the typing experience on the whole is a lot better. The phone itself is very comfortable to hold in the landscape position. The layout for the keys is perfect. I couldn't ask for a better keyboard. Is everyone else liking the keyboard?
 

circustravis

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I like it, but it seems like I'm still on a little bit of a learning curve even 3 months after I upgraded from the D1 with the little differences.
 

corydunbar

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the keyboard is top notch. and the only complaint i have is when i hit the microphone button in a text box it launches voice search instead of voice-to-text.
 

Rev2010

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Love it myself, use it all the time. Even though a lot of people find they don't bother using the physical I knew I would primarily because I hate the virtual keyboards taking up 75% of the screen view. I knew when I had my iPhone that I wanted a physical keyboard.


Rev.
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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Love it myself, use it all the time. Even though a lot of people find they don't bother using the physical I knew I would primarily because I hate the virtual keyboards taking up 75% of the screen view. I knew when I had my iPhone that I wanted a physical keyboard.


Rev.

That's the perk that I love the most. I like that I can see the full screen when typing. This is a big difference between an all touchscreen device and a slider.
 

potatoho

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The physical keyboard has gotten much faster for me. The best part is that it is effortless, requiring little brain involvement, whereas to go fast with the screen keyboard it will consume both lobes. The d-pad is useful.

corydunbar: Ditto regarding the microphone button. I see why they did it programmatically, because evidently the voice feature we want is built into the virtual keyboard, but why didn't they just copy some code over.

Also I was just going to suggest that they use shift+d-pad to select text, but I just tried it and IT WORKS.
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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The mic button thing doesn't make sense. I didn't even know about the shift and arrow button keys being able to highlight text. That's so cool. This phone gets better and better all the time. I haven't started using the keyboard shortcuts yet but I think that I will eventually just like I used to do on my BlackBerry.
 
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potatoho

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Alt+dpad(left/right) jumps to the line ends. Alt+dpad(up/down) jumps to the top or bottom of the whole text box.

Ooh check this out. In the browser if you hold down shift and use the arrow keys you get a freaky little mouse cursor. You can release shift and move the cursor to some text. Then use the OK button to copy it to the clipboard.
 

potatoho

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Well I guess it would be nice if that clipboard thing actually worked :( it says it is copying it but I haven't seen it on the clipboard.
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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Well I guess it would be nice if that clipboard thing actually worked :( it says it is copying it but I haven't seen it on the clipboard.

I tried it and it works! That's awesome. It takes a little effort though but it does work. I need to look into more useful tricks like this.
 
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Rev2010

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Also I was just going to suggest that they use shift+d-pad to select text, but I just tried it and IT WORKS.

You sir are a God among men!!! Thank you sooo much for posting this. I had no idea about this and just tested it and it works like a charm even using Ultrakeyboard. One of the things I always found the most annoying, both with the iPhone and my D2, is selecting text using the touch interface. Trying to get it to highlight exactly where you want can be a PITA and this trick totally alleviates that. Man, I too need to read up the Droid tips and tricks. Who knows what else I'm missing.


Rev.
 

MacHouse83

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I also love the physical keyboard on my D2G, its very flush and responsive. I had a Blackberry Bold 9700 once upon a time and I thought that was the best till I got this beast... D2G does its all!!!
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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I also love the physical keyboard on my D2G, its very flush and responsive. I had a Blackberry Bold 9700 once upon a time and I thought that was the best till I got this beast... D2G does its all!!!

I have had lots of phones and several Android devices and I have yet to own one that is as enjoyable to use as the D2G. This phone is definitely awesome.
 

Rev2010

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I can't select text with shift + arrow keys. How do you do it?

Simply hold shift and use the arrow keys to select the text. You may want to use the arrow keys to place the cursor at the start or end of what you want to select then do the shift arrow key select. I used it just now to remove the last line of your post in my quote. Are you using the default keyboard or a 3rd party keyboard? I'm using a 3rd party keyboard app and it works for me.


Rev.
 

dwaynewilliams#WN

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The physical keyboard has gotten much faster for me. The best part is that it is effortless, requiring little brain involvement, whereas to go fast with the screen keyboard it will consume both lobes. The d-pad is useful.

corydunbar: Ditto regarding the microphone button. I see why they did it programmatically, because evidently the voice feature we want is built into the virtual keyboard, but why didn't they just copy some code over.

Also I was just going to suggest that they use shift+d-pad to select text, but I just tried it and IT WORKS.

The mic button does work! I was just experimenting with it and realized that you have to have the multitouch keyboard enabled and not swype. It seems like the physical keyboard takes on the settings of the virtual keyboard that is enabled. That's awesome because I used to have smartkeyboard and it had auto text. I'm going to try downloading it to see if I can get autotext using the slide out keyboard. If it does, then it will be like having my BlackBerry again!
 

dk21

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I've honestly not used the slide-out keyboard for anything except the initial sign-in that makes you use it. Once I found SwiftKey it completely eliminated any need to use it.
 

corydunbar

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but the hardware mic button opens up voice search and not voice-to-text. does this not bother anyone else?

update i'm using the gingerbread keyboard by the way.
 

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