WebOS to E4GT: Two things I want:

[ryebread6790]

So, my new SGS2E4GT comes tomorrow and I'm super excited!

I know nothing about android, but there are two things I'm wondering if it's possible to accomplish:

1. On the keyboard, replace the vlingo button with a comma

2. holding the search key bring to up a card view (i think the recommended perfect app switcher or whatever it is uses the home button)




...yeah i hate voice features, they're total gimmicks and wastes of functionality.


If anyone can fill me in on the android knowledge to do these, that'd be great

 

[grayfox99]

You can probably download a keyboard without the voice commands there are several different keyboards available. If you want something like the card view you can pinch any of the home screens with your fingers and it will bring up a thumbnail view of all the home screens.

 

[tdoom15]

Being a current webOS user tempted by the gs2, I think he wants a ard iew of all running applications...bc that's what I want.

I just got this to replace the 3D for my gf a couple hrs ago and will get a chance to play with it more over the weekend, so far I def like touchwiz over sense, hands down. But I've yet to use it enough to know whether or not I'll give up weOS for shiny new hardware...Ive been going back and forth daily and i feel like I can't, and that I may just wait for the nexus phone and see what happens. Ughhh I just want new webOS hardware!

 

[Cobravision]

There are a dozen different keyboards available for Android, and one of them will suit your needs. I use Swiftkey because it's very fast and it has the best word prediction engine I've seen.

Touchwiz has a task manager widget that shows you all running tasks and you can kill any one of them manually. Put that on your dock any you're good to go.

But really, with 1gb RAM, you will very likely not even need it. If you're coming from Web OS, manually killing tasks is important, but not so much with the Epic Touch.

 

[rlanza1054]

But really, with 1gb RAM, you will very likely not even need it. If you're coming from Web OS, manually killing tasks is important, but not so much with the Epic Touch.

I'm coming from WebOS, and I never had to kill tasks?

I know that I will have to do that on Android.

I hope that was what you meant?

Most of us WebOS users are going to have a hard time dealing with getting from one app to another app, I should say OPEN apps. WebOS was great with that, you were able to slide from app to app and all apps are truly running in the background, not suspended.

I just wish Android would go full on 'true multi-tasking', it really is a dream if you have not had the opportunity to work with it.

But alas, with no regret, I will be a happy Android user for sure on this S2 phone!

Rob

 

[Cobravision]

Long press on home brings up the last 8 programs you opened. It's been like that since froyo.

Whether a program suspends in the background or keeps running is dependent on the program. For instance, I can start a download in a browser window and it will continue to download in the background if I switch to the email app. My games pick up where I left off if I switch to a different program. If you leave the program running in the background for too long, it will time out and close.

 

[ijip]

yeah holding the home button does the trick.. its not as nice as webos but overall i havent been disappointed with how well android handles multi tasking....

things do get confusing once you start cutting and pasting between apps. its annoying because first cut and paste is not universal throughout the system, second even on apps which do support it, it can be handled a few different ways.... its annoying and not as intuitive as webos, but its workable.... just different.... which does make me a bit sad, but oh wells...

 

[atl10pnr]

Will miss the cards and more that anything tho is miss gesture area. Other stuff getting used to and the fact the one of my favorite apps doesn't work properly in android and is a paid app. Hope the dev can get it fixed. As it worked perfect on my pre. If curious it's Sports Calendar.

 

[maskedferret]

I miss WebOS already. :-( How can one ensure that a background app doesn't get terminated over time, thus resetting its state?

 

[flyingfreak]

lol I get mine Wednesday. I also am a webOS guy being forced to convert. I think we are going to hear a lot of "well in webOS I was able to do"......

 

[DirkBelig]

What's with the WebOS fanboys trolling here? I haven't seen this many people terrified of change since the last iPhone herd gathering.

I had an OG Pre - bought it launch day. Got my OG EVO at launch, too. I got over not closing apps by tossing the card and the lack of a gesture area in about one day. (Nowadays, I get my card tossing kicks with my HP Touchpad.) Once you get a taste of the speed and customization possible with a proper Android phone, you're going to hate how you kidded yourself about the Pre. I felt like I'd gotten out of a year-long abusive relationship when I switched.

SwiftKey X rules. Period.

 

[atl10pnr]

Trust me I will get used to it. Already used to a lot of the stuff. My biggest gripe is with the app I mentioned. That one can't get used to till the dev can get it to work. But think of when you first started with your EVO. At first with the home,menu,back buttons did it not feel as tho you took a step backwards? Yes everything else feels modern but it's just first impressions. That will pass.

 

[androidpirate]

you can also swipe inward with 2 fingers on the home screen to display the last 6 apps opened. there's no way to ensure the OS won't reset an app paused in the background (as far as i know) unless you have the app open. this is where webos is better. but the month i've used android, this never really was an issue.

I suggest swiftkey keyboard, there's an initial learning period but after it learns your writing style, you'll be touch typing way faster than on a physical keyboard. also, I think the Opera browser is better than stock (how it opens tabs, placement of buttons, etc). the amazon appstore for android gives out a free app everyday, a lot of them are quality apps.



i've been using the palm pre for the past month & a half (since i returned the evo3d) and the only good thing webos has going for it is the card multitasking. everything else has grown to be frustrating, the lack of the ability to copy/paste, open links in another card, no rotation lock, the basic form factor, tiny keyboard, the speed at which a card opens, have really started to irk me.
the cards also take a bit of time to open on a 1.2 ghz dual core touchpad leading me to believe the way the OS works is the problem.

 

[jazbojenkins]

Trust me I will get used to it. Already used to a lot of the stuff. My biggest gripe is with the app I mentioned. That one can't get used to till the dev can get it to work. But think of when you first started with your EVO. At first with the home,menu,back buttons did it not feel as tho you took a step backwards? Yes everything else feels modern but it's just first impressions. That will pass.

Agree with all the pre statements. Og pre, og evo, now contemplating the e4gt. I am thinking that I will miss sense. Idk.

 

[Cory Streater]

I know that I will have to do that on Android.


Most of us WebOS users are going to have a hard time dealing with getting from one app to another app, I should say OPEN apps. WebOS was great with that, you were able to slide from app to app and all apps are truly running in the background, not suspended.

I just wish Android would go full on 'true multi-tasking', it really is a dream if you have not had the opportunity to work with it.

Please do not use task killers!

Allow me to quote myself

Killing Tasks in Android

Without a doubt, this is one of the most discussed topics in the Android Central forums. Understandably, having come from various other Smartphone platforms (Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc.), where task management is crucial for optimal performance and battery life, most new Android Smartphone owners have 2 basic questions: 1.) Should I use a task manager? 2.) Which application does the best job at task management? After digging and digging for answers to these questions, users sometimes end up frustrated and confused by conflicting information from a wide variety of sources. This usually results in a new thread on task management. To help answer these questions (and avoid all those duplicate threads), Android Central's contributing writer and technical guru, Jerry Hildenbrand, has written this article. Please take a few minutes to read and educate yourself. If you do choose to use a task manager, and your Epic 4G Touch starts acting wonky, please uninstall the task manager to see if the problem goes away.

Also, I really like this article written by a Google Android Developer explaining task management. Scroll down to "Why Does an Application Stop?"

 

[Cobravision]

Having used the Galaxy Tab since Nov, I have slowly gotten used to what it would be like without Sense, and frankly, I don't think I will miss anything. But then again, I barely used any of the Sense widgets. One nice thing will be the standard Android function of dragging and holding an icon from the app drawer over the trash can to delete, which was disabled in Sense. My app list on the Evo is so damn slow to populate that it takes ages for me to delete a program. It's also nice to have a configurable dock area. I find that much more handy than the dock area in Sense. Really, the only really great feature I used from Sense was browser text reflow on zoom, but that's in TW now.

 

[rlanza1054]

Hi again!

Yes WebOS users might be complaining a lot, or just pointing out things. Some of us are trying to find fellow WebOS users so that we can talk about the change and how it is going.

I ended my previous post by saying I am very happy to becoming on board with Android.

But I really take exception to be called 'Trolling', that is a derogatory phrase in my opinion, I did not deserve that kind of statement from what I was hoping to be a fellow Android user!

One thing that I have noticed on AndroidCentral.com when comparing to Pre Central.net, that is that there is very little talk here. I would have thought there would be more talk and a bigger community here on AndroidCentral but it doesn't seem to be the case.

One thing that's going to happen when all the WebOS users finally get here, this place will start to jump and be a lot of fun!

And no we all don't have to agree on everything as long as we keep it civil!

I'm hoping to rock this place!

Rob

 

[Cory Streater]

But I really take exception to be called 'Trolling', that is a derogatory phrase in my opinion, I did not deserve that kind of statement from what I was hoping to be a fellow Android user!


Rob

You are correct. I dislike the word so much I even wrote a rule about it.

 

[darrenf]

WebOS didn't handle multi-tasking much differently than Android. For a process to run for more than a few seconds once it lost focus, it had to keep a notification up, just like Android. The biggest difference is that Android cleans up processes if you stop using them for a while (or perhaps just based on memory requirements) where with WebOS, if a program was running in a card you could be sure that it would still be there when you came back to that card. That said, WebOS had the "too many cards" error, so maybe Android has the right idea.

Give voice a chance. So far that's the killer app on Android for me. Maybe all the years of creating dictation files at work have give me a voice that's well suited to the translation software , but I've found that it makes few mistakes and it's helped me get over the lack of a physical keyboard for typing without looking at the phone (important when driving, for instance).

I'm a huge WebOS fanboy, but having worked on Android for six months now, the pluses outweigh the minuses. I would still kill for JustType/Universal Search, though -- Google Search just isn't the same.

-darren

 

[milominderbinde]

...
1. On the keyboard, replace the vlingo button with a comma
2. holding the search key bring to up a card view (i think the recommended perfect app switcher or whatever it is uses the home button)
...yeah i hate voice features, they're total gimmicks and wastes of functionality.

Check out the Palm webOS Homebrewer's Guide to Android.

1. See the Keyboards section of the Getting Started. Many love the SwiftKey keyboard.
2. See the Palm webOS Homebrewer's Guide to Android section on cards:

Cards
If you miss cards, try Perfect Task Switcher, Visual Task Switcher, Wave Launcher, Itching Thumb or launchers like LauncherPro.
​

3. You something you have never owned...If you checked out the Getting Started section on Search and Voice Actions, you might find that it is really good, especially when driving.