G'day all... New to the list, but absolutely interested in buying one...
Because the Neo1973 has no keyboard/pad, I was wondering about the possibilities of input. I imagine SMSes etc. would be entered with a full on-screen keyboard rather than a 12-char keypad like on regular phones. But I would guess that the small screen size would mean this probably needs to be done with a stylus rather than fingers. I used to have a Palm pilot with Graffiti handwriting recognition, which was okay as a stylus method, but I always found it very slow. Similarly, on screen qwerty keyboards seem to be a poor choice because they require a lot of attention and precision; unlike key-based keyboards, you need to look at them continuously, so you miss errors when you've made them... Also, the shape of a keyboard is designed to assist nine-fingered input, whereas with one stylus you'd want everything to be more centrally/circularly located (I'd think). I initially was thinking of simply a more circular keyboard layout with the most common letters in the minute, but I'm currently reminded of a GTK+ program that comes with Gnome---Dasher I think---which is an excellent tool for entering text with the mouse. You simply aim your single pointing device at a letter, it comes towards you and shows next letters; it also predicts the likely next letters and makes them easier to hit. It also shows the word you're typing in the area you're working (I think), so although it requires attention, you will know you've made a mistake. It should also be lenient enough to allow input with a finger instead of a stylus. It seems comparatively graphically intensive for as simple a device as a handheld computer. Does anyone know if it would be practical to use this on a Neo1973? Alternatively, does anyone know of any other text-input methods that would be superior than slow handwriting recognition or tedious OSKs? -- Alexander. _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
