Tuesday, September 8, 2009

My workplace

This is where i work, and where I develop personal stuff after work.
Dual head (when I can borrow the second display), my laptop and a fan just in case.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

New key layout: numbers behind

I guess you didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition this new layout:
I wish i can do customizable colors (and layout!).

Monday, August 24, 2009

New Release: alfa10

New features:
  • Uppercase support.
  • Some symbols added.
  • Better letter preview popup.
  • Added settings menu shortcut, by long pressing "Enter/Next" key.
Several bugs fixed, hopefully now it always types what you expect.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

New buttons

I'm investigating on how to customize buttons, and made a possible design for buttons.
Is it me or they look a little ugly?

New Release: alfa9

Changes:
  • Added settings menu (Currently only accessable through: Settings->Locale&Text->SlideType Keyboard Settings)
  • 2 different configurable key layouts (as discussed in previous blog post).
  • Disabled hardware key processing (hopefully fixing back and space displaying junk bug).
  • Added menus in spanish.

Friday, August 21, 2009

HOWTO-ES: Instalar y configurar

  1. Descargar e instalar desde el Market (actualmente sólo está soportado en sistemas Android 1.5). Puedes usar este QR-Code:
  2. Ir a Ajustes -> Idioma y país, y habilitar SlideType Keyboard.
  3. Volver al inicio y ejecutar una aplicación, por ej: Mensajes->Mensaje Nuevo.
  4. Dejar pulsado el dedo sobre el campo de edición de texto. Aparecerá un menú, seleccionar Método de introducción de texto->SlideType Keyboard.

UI enhancements

People ask me to make keys bigger. There are several approaches:
  • Make keyboard and keys layout taller. This could have issues in small or landscape screens. On the other hand this keyboard is intended to be used in portrait mode.
  • Reduce margin around keyboard. This has to be done carefully, because margin makes sliding detection safer.
  • Make labels bigger. I know labels currently look horrible, overloaded and small, specially on actual phones. So this is a proposal.

UI as of version alfa7:


Proposed UI on different screen sizes:

HOWTO: Install & Configure

  1. Download and install from Market (currently only Android 1.5 or higher is supported). You can use this QR-Code:
  2. Go to Settings -> Locale&Text, and enable SlideType Keyboard.
  3. Go back and open an application with text fields, e.g. Messaging->New message.
  4. Press and hold on the text field. A popup menu will appear, then select Input Method->SlideType Keyboard.

Introducing SlideType Keyboard

Standard virtual keyboards have issues:
  • Full QWERTY keyboards have small keys.
  • Other keyboards require either pressing a key multiple times, or need a dictionary.
A solution to this requires more than just clicking keys. On multitouch devices there is Chord Typing), and for the rest a solution is sliding!


Self explanative animation and simulation in Javascript: http://www.latinsud.com/pub/slideType/


Download application using this QR-Code or link (currently only Android 1.5 or higher is supported):

(I'm releasing source code under Apache 2.0 License in september)