I tried out the "MessageEase" keyboard that William suggested, on my Note 2. It's an interesting concept. I definitely like the 9 extra-large keys, and the tap-and-swipe character selection methodology. I also like how I can pick the colors and contrast of the keys and markings. MessageEase also lets you turn on or off the auto-type functions, which every general-purpose keyboard should allow. Somehow I had missed the fact that Android allows one to swipe down to select the keyboard on any app.
However, the MessageEase keyboard is a radical departure from traditional qwerty keyboards, and requires a significant learning curve to become proficient. If I must learn a new key entry system to use J efficiently on a touch screen, I would think that a specialized keyboard specifically designed for J along the lines of what Alex Giannakopoulos describes, might be a better approach. We could probably even steal some of the tap-and-swipe ideas from MessageEase for J glyph selection. The popularity of touch screen phones and tablets have made text entry by tapping with one finger on a screen while holding the device in the other hand, a common practice. More significantly, touch screens and soft keyboards have removed the constraints that physical keyboards have placed on us, which we have suffered with for over 150 years. The result is a plethora of soft Android keyboards <http://bit.ly/TFEpOw> (http://bit.ly/TFEpOw) for general use. But why try to build a one-size-fits-all keyboard? Today, keyboards can be adapted to the application, rather than forcing the application to fit the keyboard. I can't help but wonder what Ken Iverson would have done if he had been able to design a soft keyboard for APL. A keyboard where the number and size of the keys and the character markings on each key could dynamically change as one typed. A keyboard where long holds on a key could popup more choices, or swipes could select glyph modifications. Of course, the biggest problem at the time was the character display, which could also now be solved, but that's another problem, and a different discussion. The fact is, the character issue gave Ken the rationale to update APL, and that was a good thing. Vijay Lulla pointed out a Thesis <http://bit.ly/TFHZbB> ( http://bit.ly/TFHZbB) that looks at this issue of J-specific keyboards. That J keyboard layout still seems oriented to two-hand typing, though it definitely is a huge improvement over qwerty. Treating J's 2-charater glyphs as a single entity using popups as the paper proposes, seems to be another promising approach in contrast to MessageEase's tap-and-swipe scheme. One of the primary issues is whether a keyboard should be optimized for one-finger typing, or for full sit-down, two-hands use. In my case, I use J on my Note 2 as a handy calculator, so I really like MessageEase's one-handed, one-finger tap-and-swipe scheme. Since J on touch-screen devices are typically hand-held, the one-finger option seems to be the right approach for portable devices. For now, I am going to try out Michael Dykman's J console app, which includes a J keyboard. That's the keyboard I tried earlier, and I remember it wasn't all that much easier to use than the stock Android keyboard. However, it did have all the predictive text stuff turned off, which made switching to J faster, so think I'll give it another try. Skip Skip Cave Cave Consulting LLC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
