Non-Touchscreen operation in Fremantle?

[benny1967]

I usually use my N810 without touching the screen much. Menus I activate with the menu button, then select with the d-pad. I scroll in the browser using the space-bar. I select elements in forms with the d-pad. It's a lot faster and more convenient this way for me.

I was worried that I'd have to break this habit wit Fremantle (should I ever get such a device) because of the missing d-pad, then relaxed when I saw there are at least cursor keys.... and now am worried again:

Is there something that will have the function of the current "menu"-key?
Will it be possible to select one of several adjacent buttons/checkboxes with the cursor keys? I read somewhere that those elements don't have a focus anymore because "it doesn't make sense in a touch based environment"... so what does that mean? will it really be "fingers only"?

any information based on the SDK?

[nowave7]

5800 UI is touch based, but in menus there is still focus. If you press an item that is not focused, it becomes focused, and if you press it once more, only then is the item activated.

[GeneralAntilles]

It's a lot faster and more convenient this way.

That's not subjective at all. . . .

[javispedro]

Anything non touchscreen is now démodé (see iPhone), so I guess the answer is not (even though I am one of those that find a simple d-pad easier and faster to use than any kind of touch scroll gizmo).

[timsamoff]

That's not subjective at all. . . .
I was going to say, "For you." :p

Tim

[benny1967]

I was going to say, "For you." :p

...It's a lot faster and more convenient this way for me.

I edited my original post to please the Council Gods :D

(I should have added "...and javispedro" now that I read his reply - but how does all of this affect the question itself?)

[lma]

Is there something that will have the function of the current "menu"-key?


I didn't see an obvious menu button in any of the "leaked" shots, but FWIW the F4 binding is still there and brings up the app menu in scratchbox. Maybe it's one of the buttons around the device (rather than in front), or maybe the RX-51 doesn't have one but other devices might.

Will it be possible to select one of several adjacent buttons/checkboxes with the cursor keys?


Not in a very useful way. You can move between text input fields with the arrow keys, but you can't access buttons, checkboxes etc or scroll long forms. That's Hildon BTW - I have no idea what Qt does.


(I should have added "...and javispedro" now that I read his reply


Me too :-)

[benny1967]

the F4 binding is still there and brings up the app menu in scratchbox. Maybe it's one of the buttons around the device (rather than in front), or maybe the RX-51 doesn't have one but other devices might.

[...] You can move between text input fields with the arrow keys, but you can't access buttons, checkboxes etc or scroll long forms.

thank you, that's useful information (even if it's not what i'd hoped to hear).

i also faintly remember now that i read somewhere during the "will there be a d-pad? no but cursor keys."-time that somebody rather nokian said that cursor keys could be present in one keyboard language variant, but lacking in another. so maybe a non-english keyboard (mine: i'll want a german one, please) won't even have the cursor keys the way we see them on the "leaked" images. - which would make the whole question obsolete. :(

[Andre Klapper]

so maybe a non-english keyboard won't even have the cursor keys

Every available localization design will have hardware keys to navigate.

[javispedro]

Every available localization design will have hardware keys to navigate.

But most of them seem to have only left+right (and not 4 directions like the English one), or at least that's what the Xmodmap seems to indicate (of course, this proves nothing).

[benny1967]

Couldn't it be that some of those 4 buttons are used for accented characters in sophisticated langages ;) and, in such a layout, act as updownleftright only if pressed together with one of the modifier keys? I still cannot believe they really plan to release a hardware keyboard that lacks 13% of my language's characters (or moves them to some obscure ctrl+sym+shift-combination).

[sjgadsby]

I still cannot believe they really plan to release a hardware keyboard that lacks 13% of my language's characters (or moves them to some obscure ctrl+sym+shift-combination).

All part of Nokia's plan to force the world to Lojban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Phonology_and_Orthography).

[attila77]

Couldn't it be that some of those 4 buttons are used for accented characters in sophisticated langages ;) and, in such a layout, act as updownleftright only if pressed together with one of the modifier keys? I still cannot believe they really plan to release a hardware keyboard that lacks 13% of my language's characters (or moves them to some obscure ctrl+sym+shift-combination).

Just 13% ? I'm missing 25%, curse them latin alphabets with 44 letters ! :D Also, on a linux thingy I wouldn't mind accented cursors to be pgup/pgdn/home/end and such, but we're moving away from that target audience, I guess (going to xmodmap it anyway :) ).

[Andre Klapper]

But most of them seem to have only left+right (and not 4 directions like the English one), or at least that's what the Xmodmap seems to indicate (of course, this proves nothing).

Okay, let me try again:
I think that every available localization design (at least all those designs I have seen, and that were a few) will provide hardware keys that will make it possible to navigate in 4 directions which have 90 degrees difference between each other.

Better? :-D