2012-06-30

(Slightly) Faster Typing with Standard Android Onscreen Keyboard

Found that you can enter digits and punctuation by using the touch-and-hold gesture on the standard Android onscreen keyboard. For example, hold down the q to get '1' or hold down the DOT to choose from a menu of common punctuation marks. This gesture makes it possible to type slightly faster since you do not need to change modes so frequently.

The touch-and-hold gesture also provides extra characters for keys in the number and symbol modes. For instance, 1 provides a choice of fractions with 1 as the numerator, $ provides common currency symbols and ( provides different left brackets.

2012-07-17: When three dots appear below the suggested words, touch-and-hold any of the suggested words to get a table of additional words.

If you read the Google's Use the keyboard guide, it mentions the touch-and-hold gesture but you might miss the usefulness of the feature since the guide does not go into detail or provide any examples.

PS. When I tried the touch-and-hold gesture on a physical BlackBerry Bold keyboard, I get capital letters, so that gesture is available on other mobile phone keyboards.

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