Photon Support Group For Palm webOS Users

[milominderbinde]

Yeah, pretty sure that was your rec, and I even spent a few minutes looking for it, but gave up.

Hey, so I bought Swiftkey, and I seem to have botched the installation (by not pressing "back" immediately after choosing it in the options.) Am I stuck? Do you have any idea what I can do?

Try going back to the Market app > Menu > My Apps and SwiftKey shoul dbe at the top. See if you can open it from there and finish installation. Worse case you can uninstall a paid app like SwiftKey and then they stay ready to be reinstalled.
Applications
Paid apps can be reinstalled for free: Tap Market > Menu > My Apps & reinstall.

 

[milominderbinde]

Puzzlegal, I just want to thank you again. In one night you have helped me make a dozen great improvement to the Getting Started and Survival Guides. I forgot to hit Thanks and Like for each one but will now! [edit] You are now Thanked 14 Times with Likes Received: 16

Any more ideas, questions, or help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Puzzlegal]

OK, that;s another plain vanilla Android thing. How does this sound for the Cut, Copy, Paste, and Share:

Cut and Paste While Typing
You can easily move text around while you are typing. On some phones, you many need to Tap Menu for Cut and Paste options. If you have a phone with a physical keyboard, you may need to press and hold Shift while you swipe you finger over the content to copy.
? Double Tap or Long-press to select a Word.
? To select more content: Drag the selection points to enclose the content you want.

Perfect. You might want to add that on this phone you press and hold selected text to pull up a menu that allows you to cut or copy.

Under Notifications, I have refined the verbiage.
When you get an email, text, or other event occurs, an LED can flash and a Notifications will appear in the Status bar at the top. Drag the Notification Status Bar down from the top (swipe down) to see them all. They will stay visible until you tap one or drag the Notifications back up from the bottom (swipe up) to close it. If you don't want to look at your notifications right now, they will not take up any screen at all.

Does that make it more understandable?

I got this one from the metaphor of a screen that pulls down over the physical screen. My only problem was realizing that the screen had been pulled _all the way_ down. So you probably want someone else's feedback for that.

I liked the notifications on the Pre, but I like these even more, even though the icons aren't nearly as cute. I gather than not all Androids let you dismiss individual notifications, but this one does, very cleanly.

(Speaking of cute icons, I am somewhat disappointed with tapatalk for Android after playing with Tapatalk for Pre. I think the Pre interface is more intuitive and more attractive and less cluttered. The Android version has a little more functionality, but it doesn't seem to be especially useful additional functionality.)

Puzzlegal, I just want to thank you again. In one night you have helped me make a dozen great improvement to the Getting Started and Survival Guides. I forgot to hit Thanks and Like for each one but will now! [edit] You are now Thanked 14 Times with Likes Received: 16

Any more ideas, questions, or help is greatly appreciated!

Hey, mostly you are helping me move into the gadget. I'm very grateful to have your support. It is so much easier to use a complicated new toy if there's someone who has already figured it out you can talk with.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Hey, something else to add to the big post at the start. It wasn't my idea, but I think it was from another thread, so you might not have seen it. If you are a Pre user, and have some touchstones lying around, they make pretty decent magnetic "stands" for the Photon. Just line up the kickstand with the magnets, and the grip is quite stable. Much nicer than leaving it lying on the desk, and handy for those of us who like to use the phone in portrait mode. (Of course, the kickstand will do the same thing if you prefer landscape.)

 

[Puzzlegal]

Try going back to the Market app > Menu > My Apps and SwiftKey shoul dbe at the top. See if you can open it from there and finish installation. Worse case you can uninstall a paid app like SwiftKey and then they stay ready to be reinstalled.
Applications
Paid apps can be reinstalled for free: Tap Market > Menu > My Apps & reinstall.

Uninstalling and reinstalling worked. Phew.

 

[freeridstylee]

Is there a way to get the 30 day trial for swiftkey? I'm not sure if I'm sold on the phone yet (due to having to reset to make and receive calls), so I'd prefer trying swiftkey out before knowing for sure if I'm going to have a long stay in Android land.

 

[milominderbinde]

Is there a way to get the 30 day trial for swiftkey? I'm not sure if I'm sold on the phone yet (due to having to reset to make and receive calls), so I'd prefer trying swiftkey out before knowing for sure if I'm going to have a long stay in Android land.

I can no longer find the trial. Sorry about that. It is worth the $4.

 

[freeridstylee]

I can no longer find the trial. Sorry about that. It is worth the $4.

Thanks a lot for taking a look!

 

[freeridstylee]

Why the crap is this phone failing at sending out text messages?!?!@?@ Never once has the pre failed at texting. Am I doing this wrong? How can I copy what I just "sent" but didn't go through and paste it back into the send field to retry?

 

[jadiff]

On my Pre, I always kept an email card open so I could see it at a glance. Is there a widget that will do this on the Photon? I am using the Motorola Message widget, but I only see the last message. I have two exchange accounts and get dozens of email per hour that I can't miss. Heck, even if I pull down the notification bar I only see the last message for each account. I have to keep opening the full blown client or moto blur.

I'm also concerned that I'll miss text message notifications.

Maybe this is just going to take some real getting used to and re-training.

 

[Puzzlegal]

On my Pre, I always kept an email card open so I could see it at a glance. Is there a widget that will do this on the Photon? I am using the Motorola Message widget, but I only see the last message. I have two exchange accounts and get dozens of email per hour that I can't miss. Heck, even if I pull down the notification bar I only see the last message for each account. I have to keep opening the full blown client or moto blur.

I'm also concerned that I'll miss text message notifications.

Maybe this is just going to take some real getting used to and re-training.

I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, except I don't do much texting. Interested in an email widget, I guess. For now I'm just leaving my email client open whenever I am not using the phone for something else.

I liked the "pages" on the Pre, and don't really care for the task switching on the Android. I suppose it works, but it's somehow unsatisfying.

 

[Puzzlegal]

I pulled out the pre this morning, as i packed to go to Germany. It's so shiny, and cute. And I don't hit the "home" key when I aim for the space bar. And it's nice to be able to choose whether to shut an app or leave it ready to finish typing a note. And I don't have to erase whole words of random stuff the gadget has guessed at.

This doesn't randomly freeze while it "thinks". Is that a compelling reason. The to keep it? Are there other compelling reasons to switch to android? I ought to try the navigation. It's supposed to be much better.

Oh, and and does angry birds even work on this thing in airane mode? I get games to amuseyself in airplanes and subways.

 

[Puzzlegal]

.

I liked the "pages" on the Pre, and don't really care for the task switching on the Android. I suppose it works, but it's somehow unsatisfying.

Is there a way to switch among apps without losing my place? I wanted to dial a number in an email. I found the email, then opened the phone. On the pre I would have slid the cards back and forth to read a couple of digits, type a couple of digits, repeat. I tried lpng-pressing the home button, But when I switch it always seems to reopen apps like k9 or the dialer.

Same problem when I wanted to enter the number as a new contact. I had the go to email and write the guy's name on a scrap of paper so I could copy it from the email to the contact list.

 

[jadiff]

Is there a way to switch among apps without losing my place? I wanted to dial a number in an email. I found the email, then opened the phone. On the pre I would have slid the cards back and forth to read a couple of digits, type a couple of digits, repeat. I tried lpng-pressing the home button, But when I switch it always seems to reopen apps like k9 or the dialer.

Same problem when I wanted to enter the number as a new contact. I had the go to email and write the guy's name on a scrap of paper so I could copy it from the email to the contact list.

Hmmm, dialing halfway seems to work for me. I dial a few numbers hold home, goto email get the rest of the number back to dialer and the 3 digits are still there. I am using the paid version of Enhanced Email, but I tried it with text too. Of course when I go back to text messaging, I have to go through the process of opening the last text of the person I want to see.

 

[Teniferman]

Is there a way to switch among apps without losing my place? I wanted to dial a number in an email. I found the email, then opened the phone. On the pre I would have slid the cards back and forth to read a couple of digits, type a couple of digits, repeat. I tried lpng-pressing the home button, But when I switch it always seems to reopen apps like k9 or the dialer.

Same problem when I wanted to enter the number as a new contact. I had the go to email and write the guy's name on a scrap of paper so I could copy it from the email to the contact list.

Isn't there a way to just copy/paste like in WebOS? Hearing you say that you have to do so many steps is making my head hurt about Android. I am still on my Pre- and am looking for an alternative but things like this make me hesitant to go with Android.

 

[jadiff]

Actually, in Enhanced email I just clicked on the number (it did NOT look like a hyper link) and the dialer opened with the number ready for me to hit dial.

I did not see a way to add as/to a contact though. If I hold tap the number, I can select and copy the number.

 

[Puzzlegal]

I am in Germany, and the number as written included the country code, and and NOT the +, so I'd be surprised if you could just click on it. (although I tried something similar and it didn't work.) similarly, I got the guy's first name from his signature, and his surname from his email address, so even if I knew how to cut and paste across apps it would have taken a few steps.

Maybe I have some global setting wrong, but nothing stays where I left it. K9 email starts at the top, despite selecting aenu item to start in the com one inbox. I had to hunt to find the drafts folder (so 8-10 clicks, but it could have been fewer if I knew what I was doing) to continue an email. I had to start doing from scratch. Frankly, it's driving me nuts. But I pulled out the pre to try to use that, (I'm on wifi) and it decided not to download email, which reminded me why I was shopping.

Of the pre worked every time (or almost every time) and was more responsive, it would be far superior to this gadget. But the pre is flaky and underpowered. What are you going to do?

I may still go back to the pre and hope a franken-upgrade might smooth out so of the performance issues.

 

[erinpac]

I am also coming over from a Pre.

I really hope some of the nice WebOS UI concepts get absorbed - into apps or otherwise - eventually. I do like the larger availability of apps, in particular official/corporate type apps - companies rarely ported their own apps to WebOS. It is nice to be able to use the ones I see advertised.

However, so far, I am searching and customizing and searching some more, and can't bring the UI to anywhere near as easily usable. :-/ In particular I miss cards - I'm aware it's not really closing everything, but even the task switchers recommended here are slower, less user friendly, and a list of recent apps isn't the same as the ones you are using *now* or want open, so they get cluttered. I also miss the email interface. That one I'm hoping I eventually find a good replacement for... I just want to see all my emails one place, with the option to look at a specific box, get compact notifications (not a bajillion for different emails, half of which are garbage), and easily delete items like spam from the main list (oh, I miss swiping them off screen - holding on an email and then selecting delete is a big slow down that drives me to my computer if I get a pile of spam). I also miss my keyboard badly - am trying the 'good' keyboard replacements recommended here, but it is so frustrating to have them all guess wrong repeatedly and then not even let me fix the word, even after the slower typing. The Pre did guess as well, but it was less heavy handed about it.

I like the photon. I'm trying to like Android, because I don't see a lot of good WebOS replacements coming. Thanks for the list... it did help get me part way there and is a big improvement over just diving in. Still have some major frustrations, hopefully I'll stumble into good solutions for them here... also like some things about it though. At least it is fast, clear & 4G.

 

[Puzzlegal]

If the pre worked consistently and smoothly, and if it were supported by 3rd party apps, it would below android away. But it's flaky and underpowered and (effectively) orphaned.

So it goes.

 

[Puzzlegal]

I am also coming over from a Pre.
. . .
I also miss the email interface. That one I'm hoping I eventually find a good replacement for... I just want to see all my emails one place, with the option to look at a specific box, get compact notifications (not a bajillion for different emails, half of which are garbage), and easily delete items like spam from the main list (oh, I miss swiping them off screen - holding on an email and then selecting delete is a big slow down that drives me to my computer if I get a pile of spam). I also miss my keyboard badly - am trying the 'good' keyboard replacements recommended here, but it is so frustrating to have them all guess wrong repeatedly and then not even let me fix the word, even after the slower typing. . .

I am liking swype, although I'm still sort of slow with it. But it often guesses right, and it lets me manually fix anything it guesses wrong, and when I nail a word, it's very fast. I also sort of like that somebody took the trouble to think, "We have a smooth keyboard with no distinct keys. What new things can we do with that, and how can we optimize it?"

I miss cards. The card-like task switcher is certainly better than the other things I tried, but it's clunky and slow and inelegant compared to live cards. I especially miss cards when I want to use two applications together (typing info from an email into some other aplpication, for instance). I also find it frustrating that the OS randomly decides to close apps I would like to keep open, and doesn't close apps that I am done with, although the task switched lets me close things.

I REALLY miss "swipe to delete". I get a lot of email, and it's really a nuisance to have to open or touch-hold each one that I want to get rid of. It's also frustrating that different apps handle "go back" in different ways.

I miss having buttons handy for whatever I am most likely to want to do. Sometimes I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of an email to delete it. (And sometimes not. I haven't figured out the rule.) I have to go into the menus to reply to an email, or to start a new one. Why? Why not put the most common choices right there at the bottom of every view? And it's really annoying that notifications have to be manually deleted, and the notification thing doesn't just know that I've opened email.

I REALLY miss "just type". I didn't realize how much I used that. A lot of my interface frustatrations will lessen as I learn my way around and move into this OS (currently, it asks "which browser do you want to use to complete this task" all too often. I need to pick one and set a default.) But a lot of interface stuff was just better thought out and better integrated on the Pre.

Some things are better: It's much easier to edit text with the little grabbable "end of selection" bars than it was on the Pre. I can tell whether K9 is failing to download email because there's nothing to download or because of some communication problem. It's smoother and more responsive in general, although I have had the "phone doesn't work" problem.

I wish there was a shiny new WebOS phone that I expected to be supported. I think I can get used to this. Debating whether I need to relpace the unit due to the "can't answer phone" problem.