Laughing Man | # 11 | 2009-09-21, 01:00 | Report

I can understand how useful it is. I use it in Pidgin (a multi-protocal chat IM client). Especially since you can turn something like ilu into "I love you". Which is extremely handy on the n800 when talking with your girlfriend lol.

The problem is, it shouldn't be difficult to program it for any single app to implement for its own purpose. But what about on a multi-app basis as in it's part of the operating system to check text in any app? Are their APIs or methods that would allow that (anyone know who is familar with the inwards of the operating system?).

GeraldKo | # 12 | 2009-09-21, 02:10 | Report

I wanted something very similar and posted a request in this thread, "Will someone code an Always-on-Top Macro-Typing Applet like TypeItIn?"

In Diablo, I use the suggestion offered in that thread by Benson: combine xautomation's xte function with Personal Menu. I detailed the solution in this thread, "How To: Making your own Form Filler or Macro Typer".

funpig | # 13 | 2009-09-21, 03:33 | Report

it's a pretty good if it's a plugin that could be used in any txt input field ( edit, e-mail, sms, .... )

zkyevolved | # 14 | 2009-09-21, 09:16 | Report

Really? Well, it would have to be present in all of the OS, I imagine. For example, my name isn't automatically capitalized on my Blackberry, so kent --> Kent.

Also, "putnum" would put my phone number. or "wel" --> "we'll", "il" --> "I'll". I can type incredibly fast thanks to these replacements, because i have tied words like "th" to "the" which saves me an e, or ddt to didn't, or when I have to type in Spanish or French, I have bano to baño, or putting two Os gives me an O with an accent. It saves A LOT of time. Some more practical usages to speed up the OS would be 'bday' to birthday, cmd --> command, I also programmed "fbalbum" to the main album on my facebook page to send people links directly. I also programmed the letters that correspond to numbers to put my phone number, saves pressing the function key hr to hour, hrs to hours, mo to month, and mos to months. I've always used "putsig" to put "Yours truly, Kent" blah blah blah. There are infinite uses for this and I would LOVE for there to be an app tied into the OS to do this. It uses very little ram (on a BB at least) and helps out A LOT in every day tasks.

"other considerations, do you recursively expand the contents, do you automatically expand over 1/2/3 message boundaries?"

I didn't really understand that. I'm not much a programmer. Lol.

zkyevolved | # 15 | 2009-09-21, 09:53 | Report

That's basically what I'd want, but not as buttons. I have probably around 500 different words between 3 different languages. Have to scroll through a list or a table and click it seems like a big hassle. Is there a way to add words to the "auto correct" feature of the phone? Because essentially that's what it is. It auto corrects kent for Kent, and mos for months.

GeraldKo | # 16 | 2009-09-21, 15:13 | Report

zkyevolved, for fast typing, your solution is far preferable. (My Personal Menu/xte solution is really just for form filling; and admittedly it is cumbersome.) Heck with wanting autotext for the N900:

I want autotext for Diablo! For the N800 and N810! I hope it at least gets into Mer.

In the old Macintosh OS (Mac OS 7; probably through OS 9), there was a program you could install called "Thunder 7," which enabled auto-correction across all the programs. I used to use it like you use the Blackberry auto-correct, but less extensively. (I had a full keyboard, of course; so I used it just for long words, like "rel" for "relationship" and, for a specific paper, "anth" for "anthropomorphic.")

So for the old Mac, there was Thunder 7. Googling for a program that applies customizable auto-correct uniformly across all programs on current OSes, I've come up with PhraseExpress, FastFox typing Expander and JitBit AutoText, all of which are commercial programs. There doesn't even appear to be a comprehensive AutoText app for the iPhone.

Interestingly, I found that there are a number of requests for an AutoText Add-On for FireFox, but none seem to have been created. If the N900's browser could take Firefox add-ons (will it be able to?), that would probably solve most needs ... but there isn't even such an add-on.

The AutoText feature really does appear to be something of a killer app for the Blackberry.

Something you may not be aware of is that in Maemo 4/Diablo (and in Maemo 5?), there isn't really auto-correction. Instead (at least with the stylus keyboard), what happens is that, when you type two or more letters, you are offered a selection of several words below the keyboard which you can select with your stylus. So, for example, as soon as I type "fr" I'm offered "from" "free" "friend" and "friends" and I can select one of them. I see no reason that this helpful feature couldn't co-exist with the sort of autocorrection you are asking for.

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Last edited by GeraldKo; 2009-09-21 at 15:32.

zkyevolved | # 17 | 2009-09-21, 19:18 | Report

Great I don't have an account with the community, so if one of you would like to pitch this in the sandbox, I'd greatly appreciate it. If they decide to go with it and need help or more ideas or how it works, point them in my direction. If someone needs help funding this, I would also be happy to do this, even though I know most of the people here just do it to do it! But as i said before, I don't have an account with the community, just with Talk. So... does anyone want to pitch this into the sandbox?

timsamoff | # 18 | 2009-09-22, 02:48 | Report

Just go to http://maemo.org and register for an account!

Tim

zkyevolved | # 19 | 2009-09-22, 08:08 | Report

Posted it

check it out and vote

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/autotext/

lasergun | # 20 | 2010-05-31, 06:22 | Report

Hi all,
This thread had been dead for a while,
and still there is no solution for the suggested feature of using keyboard short words for auto replace (like bb = byebye, signit = <your signiture> etc).
It would be really cool if there was one.

GeraldKo found this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=26894

Which is a way to simulate keyboard input. That's half a solution.
Another half should be being able to log keyboard last strokes and replace them.

The given brainstorm died for some reason as well.

I would really appreciate it if anyone could give his his ideas of how to implement this.

I don't know much about deep maemo kernel, but maybe if it is easier to implement on the virtual keyboard, it would be great.
Another option is to use the shortcuts on the top menu for some, but currently they connect only installed apps.

Thanks,

NBD