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Text Expansion (Arpeggios)
So on other operating systems, you might be able to type "hw+[space]" and it would erase your text and expand to "hello world". I have no idea how the UT keyboard interacts with the OS but this would be some kind of program that would monitor everything you type to search for user-defined patterns to then erase the text and replace with whatever the user defined. I don't think this currently exists but might be a nice enhancement-feature to add eventually.
Chorded Keyboard: Modifiers
Someone in another post mentioned it might be nice if a proper keyboard was created with control and alt keys like for thumb typing in terminal. I noticed while writing this post that on the keyboard, there is a feature to hold the key down and swipe up to select between a few choices. It would be interesting if you could swipe up on shift to control or alt keys (as a "sticky") and then select a letter to form a two-key "chord". Or also perhaps if the user could define more of the choices available, and you could hold down a key and swipe in all directions to choose even more choices (rather that just swiping up).
Chorded Keyboard: Anything
Or, I was wondering if it was possible to code other "chorded" entries, like if you hold down shift and hit "a", it outputs "A" and releases both keys, or if you held down "hw" at the same time and released it, it might output "hello world" (if you wanted it to do that).
In portrait mode I might be able to get three fingers to chord an entry at once, or in landscape mode even more (six fingers if it is laying down, maybe four-five if holding it with one hand). This would be utilizing some kind of multi-touch properties of the devices.
Plover
Also, I don't know if this runs in Libertine containers or could run on UT, but the Open Steno Project has a program that takes chords in their stenography shorthand combinations and outputs the corresponding defined words. For instance, someone hooked up a steno keyboard to what I assume is Android to type in a cigar box - I think it would be cool to see on UT eventually, if it doesn't easily work at present.
What do you think? I can try to expand on the above if it wasn't clear.
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I don't know about the fancy features described here.
But a '°' degree symbol would be nice to have. I couldn't find it several times...If someone has knowledge about an existing issue, or how to type it...
Else I'll search when I have some time and will open a feature request. -
Another thing that is annoying is that the language toggle button only toggles between the two last used options. So if you have more than one installed, or want to use the emoji selector you have to long press and manually choose. I think it would be better if you could choose in the settings what keyboard layouts are active and then toggle in chain through all of them by default.
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@poVoq The settings part is already there.
So you'd prefer to circle between the configured layouts instead of toggling the two most recent layouts.I agree with you on this preference. But it is just that : "preference" this is not a missing feature or an evolution, just something I would prefer.
So if you ask me, this can wait or has to be debated. -
Some updates on this as I've been testing LineageOS:
Dotterel: Plover + Arpeggiated Regular Keyboard
Dotterel (named after a bird, like "Plover" is) exists, so this same approach could be adapted possible for something of the above. It is an implementation of Plover for Android, and can take an attached keyboard's chords or can use a touch keyboard for "arpeggio mode" (where you can tap each letter and it holds it down until you hit the "space" bar to release the full chord).
I forgot about this mode but it might be an accessible example for implementing on a keyboard for chorded key entry which still might be useful: you could switch to arpeggiation mode with a key, then could hit "A" for instance and that is held down, then "B", then hit a "space" (release) key to release the "A-B" chord to whatever the user defined the chord as, which could be the word "about" or an abbreivation "Apple Berries" or whatever.
Other Existing Keyboards
A couple other Android "chorded" keyboards exist like Penti and Combo Key. I also didn't know the so-called "Hacker's Keyboard" exists, which has CTRL/ALT keys - but unfortunately only in landscape mode I think (would there be a way to get them in portrait mode?).
