I think so, too. Maybe even make your vkb able to pick up the stock vkb theme so it becomes themeable.

Nevertheless, awesome job!

Thank you guys

Please don't look at interface because it was the "firstest" prototype, nothing else...I think that first downloadable version will have the same interface of FastSMS standalone version, but I will give some sort of API to developers for write custom ui (when all works goods).

It would be very nice if you could make the T9 style with bigger button not retangular flat like in the video.

It's a first time so I'm hoping for better things really soon

Please use the 5800xpress T9 layout.

Also I noticed that your version of keyboard is very slow at loading. If you can make it instantly show up when tab on the text field then would be a good replacement Vkeyboard.

Last thing, does it support multilanguage add on to the keyboard? If it does then please advise me on how to contibute. Please use the Ukeyboard multilingual layout.

keyboard will take theme from system...and about long time loading it is due to load dictionary...just now the problem is related to only first start and disappears loading it at boot time

I'm really tempted to release a first version in next days...
Now it is quite stable and usable: only the first run after a reboot take some second to pop up and I didn't noticed fatal errors untill now.

BUT since now I have to advice you to install only if you are good experienced and you are able to recover your N900

Good to hear that you intend on making it themable/skinnable in the future. One thing I would also request is look forward to possibly make it not load dictionary on first boot if you don't have it enabled, or see if you can find a way to make your dictionary use the already existing (I would think) system dictionary (assuming the APIs and such are documented... I would hope they are), since I would think that's loaded by the OS by default. Also, perhaps letting users change button layouts may help too. I know I would love to possibly hide one of those buttons or move it around in the qwerty keyboard, so that I may have a comma on the main screen. (But I really can't imagine what I'd move, out of those things. If you integrated it closer with the rest of the keyboard settings, you may be able to let the settings applet already there for text input [since it has enable/disable auto-complete for the stock vkb], and that could get rid of the enable-disable "SmartType" button. *Shrug*)

Two more-prudent suggestions: I haven't tested the FastSMS stand-alone version, so maybe you did this already, but: It would be nice if you could have SmartType on for one VKB version and not on for another - IE, Qwerty has SmartType off, "T9" has SmartType on - so, if I have SmartType on in QWERTY, then switch to T9, it saves the fact that I had SmartType on for QWERTY; if I then turn if off to T9, before switching back to QWERTY, it should be able to save that off-in-T9 state, while turning it back on once the QWERTY keyboard comes up.

Perhaps making it remember separate states for portrait and landscape ones...

It would add three variables to wherever you save the settings, and possibly you keep those booleans (Portrait-T9-SmartType True/False; Landscape-T9-SmartType True/False ... etc) in memory to make switching times a bit quicker.

The other one, and this is really important in my opinion (because it would automatically make your VKB better than any VKB I EVER used on any phone so far in my life): Make the shifting work the way it does like on normal phones/keyboards, not like it does on most VKBs nowadays. I don't know why the iPhone VKB does it, I don't know why Opera's VKB imitates it, and I don't know why the stock landscape keyboard does it, but it's just... ugh. Please, make it so that pressing shift once makes the next character capitalized, but the next characters after that are lower-case. Pressing it twice in a row would be caps-lock. (I would mention "press-and-hold", but our screens don't support multitouch.) I just really, really despise that all the stock VKBs I've used on the N900 make me press Shift, then press the next letter, then press shift again.

Obviously, as I said before, I'll take whatever I can get since I haven't coded anything useful like this myself, but my gratitude would be significantly increased if you either already implemented this, or intend to and get around to doing it, at least in a later version of the VKB.

- Edit -

Omg-omg-omg-omg-*Squeeeel*! Vague indication that not-necessarily-stable experimental software is about to be released for us to mess with our N900s with! Yay!

two words: DO IT !

edit: i am in no position to, but you need more people to help with this project I think.. just to make it quicker and better than 1 man can.

I can load dictionary only if one is selected, but I can't use the system one. This because fastSMS need a custom format for matching "T9" input style (hello=43550). Convert it on load time is really too expensive. One of first version did it, but it takes 30-40 sec to start, against 2-4 sec.
I think that at boot time 5 seconds are not noticed by user...It is only an idea atm

You gave me some nice suggestion that I will consider to implement, specially about "shift" and "preference saving"

ATM SmartType is not supported, like word completition.

This is because I'm using a different type of approach for this vkb. It isn't a real vkb, but more close to a widget

Well, I think such boot times are noticed, but I agree with you: It's a LOT better than the load-and-convert approach, if it takes that long. (Although... if this thing is a keyboard replacement, perhaps is that convert the dictionary [overriding the old one] as part of the post-installation process, and then unconvert it [writing the old one back in] when uninstalling?... Eh, actually I wouldn't even go for that solution. I'd say at this point, if you can find a way to have your dictionary loaded into memory at boot, go for it, if you can't, then yes, the 2-5 seconds first-load time won't really bother anyone much.)

That's good. Happy to help.

Ah, k. Makes sense.

ok...we are quite close to a release, but first I need an advice from community.

I did a lot of work on this integration and specially on FastSMS...I'm thinking about sell the plugin on OVI at a (I think) fair price: 3euro.

What do you people think about this?

PS. People that donated me something will have it for free...