08-07-2020, 07:42 AM
An idea to reduce the required number of key that can get inspiration from HP/Palm webOS devices, and Palm's PalmOS device:
Arrow key can be replaced by a modifier key + swipes (any where on the screen):
- on webOS, orange + swipes will move the cursor in the direction swiped (no matter where is the cursor related to where you swipe)
- shift + swipe will select and move the cursor in the direction swipe
- (Sailfish has something vaguely similar where swiping in an edit widget, will zoom the whole screen and the cursor follows the finger, but at such zoom-levels it's easier to move it precisely letter-by-letter. But this requires support by the widget toolkit it self and is hard to do on android apps)
It's bad for using arrows in games, but its much easier to precisely move the cursor on small touchscreen that don't have a stylus
special letter modifier:
whereas android usually requires a long-press to open up a list of alternative accented letters (long press A to get to à or å)
- Palm Pre have a special modifier key to get to that.
- Palm OS used a key on the keyboard (Alt) to replace the entire alphabetic regions with accented letters (e.g.: the whole "áàâä" series mapped to Alt+qwer..) which is also the onscreen software keyboard disposition for accented letters
- And good old Unix has compose key: [compose] + [-] + [e] = "ē"
But the first and third are still cumbersome for language that require using special letters a lot. The second is much more usable, it just requires constant chording.
Arrow key can be replaced by a modifier key + swipes (any where on the screen):
- on webOS, orange + swipes will move the cursor in the direction swiped (no matter where is the cursor related to where you swipe)
- shift + swipe will select and move the cursor in the direction swipe
- (Sailfish has something vaguely similar where swiping in an edit widget, will zoom the whole screen and the cursor follows the finger, but at such zoom-levels it's easier to move it precisely letter-by-letter. But this requires support by the widget toolkit it self and is hard to do on android apps)
It's bad for using arrows in games, but its much easier to precisely move the cursor on small touchscreen that don't have a stylus
special letter modifier:
whereas android usually requires a long-press to open up a list of alternative accented letters (long press A to get to à or å)
- Palm Pre have a special modifier key to get to that.
- Palm OS used a key on the keyboard (Alt) to replace the entire alphabetic regions with accented letters (e.g.: the whole "áàâä" series mapped to Alt+qwer..) which is also the onscreen software keyboard disposition for accented letters
- And good old Unix has compose key: [compose] + [-] + [e] = "ē"
But the first and third are still cumbersome for language that require using special letters a lot. The second is much more usable, it just requires constant chording.
