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Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

k-keyboard.com

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Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#51

Post by nneonneo »

shakna wrote: post #21
quamserena wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omg I thought this was just me. How do I turn this off? On iOS, this has been bugging me for a long time.

There is no builtin setting in iOS to disable it. However most 3rd party keyboards don't have it, as implementing it without OS support is a huge pain.

Why is it hard? In principle you render an image instead of discrete buttons, and do your hit testing manually. Sure, it’s more annoying than just having your OS tell you what key got hit, but keyboard makers are doing way fancier stuff just fine (e.g. Swype).

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#52

Post by axiolite »

chente wrote: post #28

Reminds of T9 texting and I did like T9. I'll have to try this.

I call BS. NOBODY ever LIKED to type on T9. Maybe you well-tolerated it. Maybe you got reasonably good at it. But not LIKED. There's a reason text messaging really took over when smartphones came in... because T9 was no longer needed. It was objectively awful.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#53

Post by QWERTYmini »

sublinear wrote: post #49
QWERTYmini wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is, understandably, a slight delay with double-tapping, so using simultaneous key presses can help improve speed when typing quickly. Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry if I was unclear, but that's the opposite of what I'm saying. It feels as if simultaneous keypresses are not working once I type faster than a certain speed because of the way double tapping is implemented . I think I'd prefer tap and hold for the secondary character. Right now spelling is getting totally mangled no matter the technique of the user.

Since tap-and-hold has a longer delay, wouldn’t it be more suitable as a method for various extended characters in the multilingual versions? I will check whether there is any interference between simultaneous input and double-tap and take the necessary actions. Thank you for the feedback.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#54

Post by shakna »

nneonneo wrote: post #51
shakna wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no builtin setting in iOS to disable it. However most 3rd party keyboards don't have it, as implementing it without OS support is a huge pain.

Why is it hard? In principle you render an image instead of discrete buttons, and do your hit testing manually. Sure, it’s more annoying than just having your OS tell you what key got hit, but keyboard makers are doing way fancier stuff just fine (e.g. Swype).

Apple's keyboard receives more information, to put it simply. It doesn't get told that a touch was at a particular point, but the entire fuzzy area. Allowing you to use circular occlusion and other things to choose between side-by-side buttons and override the predictive behaviour when it is the wrong choice.

A third-party maker gets a single point - usually several in short succession, but still it requires more math to work out where the edges of the finger are pressing, to help determine which direction you're moving. So most just... Don't.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#55

Post by Semaphor »

Do people often thumb letters instead of swiping? And why? Coding or other stuff where you don't have natural language?

For her swiping (or glide typing) is the only thing making mobile phones somewhat usable, but I also encounter people who haven't even heard of that feature.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#56

Post by procinct »

Semaphor wrote: post #55

Do people often thumb letters instead of swiping? And why? Coding or other stuff where you don't have natural language? For her swiping (or glide typing) is the only thing making mobile phones somewhat usable, but I also encounter people who haven't even heard of that feature.

I usually just type with two thumbs and can type pretty quickly. Swiping always felt a bit awkward to me because my phone is too large to use one handed with one thumb swiping, and swiping with a finger felt awkward compared to just holding my phone in both hands and typing with both thumbs.

I imagine if you look at how most young people use their phone, it will mostly be the two thumb method and they will likely be very quick with it.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#57

Post by xattt »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #3

Smartphone keyboards dynamically adjust the "hitbox" of each key based on what's previously been typed and overall letter frequencies of the language. So when typing "Paris is the capital of Fr..." [*], the A key becomes much easier to hit than its neighbors. Fun fact: back in the day, when this tech was less refined, certain letter contexts made the hitboxes of some keys effectively nonexistent [0]. I wonder if an a…

Interesting to note is how much typing accuracy decreases if you enable dual-language single-keyboard typing (e.g. Eng + Fr) on an iPhone, since targets end up having to account for two separate dictionaries.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#58

Post by Semaphor »

procinct wrote: post #56
Semaphor wrote: post #55

Do people often thumb letters instead of swiping? And why? Coding or other stuff where you don't have natural language? For her swiping (or glide typing) is the only thing making mobile phones somewhat usable, but I also encounter people who haven't even heard of that feature.

I usually just type with two thumbs and can type pretty quickly. Swiping always felt a bit awkward to me because my phone is too large to use one handed with one thumb swiping, and swiping with a finger felt awkward compared to just holding my phone in both hands and typing with both thumbs. I imagine if you look at how most young people use their phone, it will mostly be the two thumb method and they will likely be…

Hm. Hadn't thought about size. I always make sure to get a phone that I can use one-handed, but I guess big phones are far more popular.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#59

Post by iszomer »

onli wrote: post #48
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #7

I'm not following. * Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them need multiple taps? * Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which letter you meant , and if so why use this instead of taking it one more step and using http://minuum.com/ ? * Or is it something else?

This could be a good alternative to Minuum when mixed together. The single line was great in theory, but in practice I often preferred the regular keyboard layout. Maybe the autopredict did not work all that well, at least with the multiple languages I mixed then? Going to two lines might improve it, and devices are bigger now than back then.

Blast from the past using Minuum on a Nexus 4, my second Android smartphone from my first with the O.G. Motorola Droid.

Re: Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones

#60

Post by Gys »

i tried it and think it needs at least three improvements for me to use it:

normally a sentence starts automatically with a capital but not with this keyboard

double space should result in a dot and a space, to end a sentence. Now I need to switch layout for a dot

automatic suggestions are not enabled (or implemented)

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