benny1967 | # 1 | 2010-01-26, 20:23 | Report

OK, guys, this is not for bugzilla as Nokia in its infinite wisdom already closed the related bug. It's also not for brainstorm as the only solution would be
This leaves me with a lonely posting in the rant-section of this forum. Oh, we don't have one yet? That could be worth a brainstorm....


Who of all Finns had the idea for - and who approved - the new behavior of the VKB??? Who was it? Step forward and let us know what you thought it would improve!

I went by train the other day and thought I'd just type on the VKB as I used to when it comes to short text input... No need to pull out the physical keyboard. Was I wrong!!! Every 4th-5th character was wrong because although I did hit the right key initially (I could see it in the text input area), the movement of the train made my fingers slide just a few millimeters afterward, just enough to turn an M into a J or an S into an E.

As if this wasn't enough, what really slowed me down was the sick, perverted behavior of the "Shift" function, which now is "Shift lock". I need to start a word with a capital letter... what would I expect? OK, the ideal way was the upwards-gesture we had before PR1.1... But even without that, I'd expect to tap on Shift, then tap the letter and continue typing in lower case. Noooooo, that's not what the Finns do. They obviously keep on typing in upper case until the sun rises again in spring, because "Shift" is gone! It's a "Shift lock" now, you really, honestly, have to tap "Shift", letter, "shift" in order to type one single damn capital letter!

Thank you, Nokia! Really! How much more difficult was it to type before, when you actually got the letter you tapped on (instead of some random adjacent one), when one simple gesture (instead of three taps) would give you a capital letter, when the whole **** thing was a keyboard instead of an adventure game.

I learned one thing: Take my N810 for the train. It has a better screen for watching videos, anyway.

GeneralAntilles | # 2 | 2010-01-26, 20:55 | Report

Remember Chinook? Remember all of the insane virtual input regressions because, apparently, Nokia doesn't bother to QA stuff they don't use themselves. This seems like another case of that.

Milhouse | # 3 | 2010-01-26, 20:55 | Report

I take it you are referring to bug #7391 ("Keyboard gestures no longer work" - Closed, WontFix, by design)?

If so, you should vote for bug #8542 ("Add sane shift mechanism to virtual input"), although this won't resolve the issues introduced by bug #7391 which really does need to be rolled back and re-thought as the new method is a very bad idea.

I wholeheartedly agree with your rant as the PR1.1 VKB is now impossible to use while on the move (ie. a train). The VKB is now only usable when completely stationary, but in such a circumstance I would be more likely to slide out the hardware keyboard. Typing a quick message when being jostled in a vehicle of one description or another is complete history now.

Whoever approved this change of behaviour needs a really good shoeing, and should also do more testing of new input methods when away from their nice, comfy and stable desk.

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Last edited by Milhouse; 2010-01-26 at 21:03.

benny1967 | # 4 | 2010-01-26, 21:17 | Report

already voted for #7391 a while ago and did so for #8542 now. it's the only thing i can do in such a situation... i really, really hope they have a good excuse for all that and just couldn't manage to get it into PR1.1 - if there's nothing in PR1.2 that makes us understand why this had to be... well, let me just say there's a little sleazy shop two blocks down the road that sells handcuffs, whips and gags. And they don't ask questions.


EDIT: Oh, and: Only because #7391 is "WONTFIX" doesn't mean you cannot vote for it, you know. Do if you don't like the change and the lame excuse given.

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Last edited by benny1967; 2010-01-26 at 21:49.

pycage | # 5 | 2010-01-26, 21:31 | Report

Voted for #8542, too.
The VKB on Fremantle used to be great. Now it's just crap.
What's the point of implementing broken iPhone-style workarounds on a fullscreen kb on a resistive screen?

zuti | # 6 | 2010-01-27, 00:17 | Report

When I heard about the change in PR 1.1 I was sure they had ruined the keyboard. The old VKB had been just fine for years... but I find myself actually liking the new virtual keyboard. I feel that typing just about anything is much faster and I get a lot less typos than with the old keyboard (feels like you're actually typing words, not letters at a time).

I do miss the up/down shift and enter, though.

TA-t3 | # 7 | 2010-01-27, 12:52 | Report

Did a test just now. I can only agree with Benny, the VKB has undergone a one-way negative change with nothing good added at all. There's not a single good thing anywhere in the changes from 1.0 to 1.1.

MatMat | # 8 | 2010-01-27, 14:45 | Report

One month using n900 and i NEVER used the VKB, real keys are good enough for me. :-)

TA-t3 | # 9 | 2010-01-27, 14:59 | Report

With the English hw kbd I have to use the vkb to get access to national characters (and no, I wouldn't want to replace the hw kbd with a national one, that's even worse). And when on the couch I find it close to impossible to use the hw kbd, so that's also vkb time.

daperl | # 10 | 2010-01-27, 15:36 | Report

The progression of the virtual keyboard since Maemo 2007 has been some of the worst software development I have ever seen in a commercial product.