PocketCM keyboard bilingual and shortcuts!

[caifalex]

I've been lurking around this forum for a while and I've been wanting to post this for a while to 'contribute' something of use. This for all those who claim they need a real keyboard and have tried all the keyboards out there INCLUDING pcm keyboard.

I had originally tried touchpal, the spb keyboard, PCM keyboard and the htc full qwerty keyboard and had liked NONE. However, after playing around more with PCM keyboard I found out that you can put different skins on it. I tried a bunch of 'iphone' skins and liked none of the because they pretty much covered the entire screen. Well, after looking around some more, I found the bigblack2.0 skin, it is a simple skin that makes the keys just the right size. This I did not mess with. However, with every skin comes a layout, and I had also used the bigblack_v2.1 layout, but I found out I could actually edit it. This is where the shortcuts come in. I simply copied the file to my PC, opened the file with notepad and saw the inner organs of it all. if it won't open, rename to .txt but remember to save as .layout once you're finished!

For each key this is the typical command line:

symbol_pad=d,D this means that when the key d is pressed and held for a little while (I believe it's 170ms since there is an entry that says symbol_pad_timer=170) the capital D pops up. Great right? OK gets better...

there was also...
symbol_pad=c,C[2.com/]

same thing, but this time it gives you the choice to pick a capital C or ".com"

and this is where the money was, I figured out that the 2 simply tells how many keys to span on the pop up (for example, using your PC keyboard as reference, ".com" spanned across two keys would pop up across the f and the g, so imagine the word '.com' written across the f and the g keys, if there was a 3 instead of a two there it would be centered and spanned across the f the g and the h)

SO... this allowed me to enter a bunch of custom words I write a lot (mainly for my girlfriend, in spanish 'te amo' or 'te quiero') if i wanted to write 'te quiero' all I have to do now is press the T for less than a second and the choices 'te amo', capital 'T', and 'te quiero' pop up, the entry on the layout file would just be...
symbol_pad=t,[3te amo]T[4te quiero]
the 3 and the 4 are required because that's how many keys spans it takes to correctly display those words.

I got all kinds of shortcuts on my keyboard now, such as google.com, gmail.com, and nicknames i call my girlfriend and all i have to do is leave a simple key pressed, and there's no need to use the keypad to choose the words (as is the case in the predictive text keyboards), you just moved your finger left or right. For a letter such as q, I could literally put in about 4 to 5 words i use frequently since it spans across the whole keyboard! I use that for expressions such as 'omg', 'lol', 'ttyl' 'etc', etc. but, you might want to save it for passwords or whatever it is you write a lot! It works great!!

For the letter d I have the convenient:
symbol_pad=d,D[2don't] that way if i want to write don't i just leave the d pressed and it's ULTRA fast. and it's not like the htc keyboard where if you typed too fast it would erase the highlighted parts this one is absolutely amazing and responsive!

Next thing, this keyboard actually senses what you're trying to type... so say i wrote 'jeaboard' instead of keyboard, it actually searches through it's dictionary while you type and since the letter j is close to the letter k it actually detects this and spells the word keyboard.

Furthermore, the following command line is near the end:
letter_associations=eéèê,iÃ*î,aáÃ*,oóô,uúà ¹,cç,'-,nñ
this means (if you use a bilingual dictionary, MORE ON THIS) you don't actually have to type in an 'ñ' for 'niño', you can actually type 'nino' and will search through its dictionary and make the n equivalent to ñ in it's search and replace nino with 'niño'. Or for example you want to write garçon, you could write garcon and it'll search through it's dictionary (if you have french/english) and replace it appropriately! I know this is a it confusing if you don't use accents or special characters but it's real handy if you do use them!

You want to be careful and not put the words simply next to the capital letter though... as in
symbol_pad=d,D[2don't]
you can do that for the left side of the keyboard but for the right side you'll have to do the opposite, as in..
symbol_pad=p,%[3Pequeña]P notice how the P is the last one, that way it's my first choice and it'll be directly above the lower case p, try it out different configurations!


OK, once you are done editing put it back in the '\program files\pcm keyboard' folder and then select the layout file from the keyboard options.

Now, as far as a bilingual dictionary. Many people here don't like predictive text because they tend to text in English and Spanish (or French for Canadians) so a lot of times it's a hassle to switch dictionaries, well, I also found out you can simply 'JOIN' two dictionaries.

Simply open your english.dict file, then open your spanish.dict file, select all on the spanish, copy, and paste at the end of the english.dict file, and save as spanglish.dict, recopy to the '\program files\pcm keyboard' and reselect spansligh as your dictionary and BOOM! you got a bilingual dictionary. (don't worry if one of the dictionaries is a column of words and another a row [or paragraph form], as long as you paste the second dictionary one line after the first dictionary it's all good])


So now say you wanted to say "buenas noches my love" all you do is type and and if you have any typing mistakes (ie buenaq nocher my lovr) it will actually correct it and replace each word individually (as you type each word, obviously) {{ I can actually write buenas noches my love with 4 keystrokes since I have 'buenas noches' stored on the b, then m y then 'love' (stored on the l)}}

And that's it folks, this has made PCM keyboard the keyboard of my dreams, I can type super fast due to it's correction methods, i can switch between english and spanish without changing the dictionary, the size is JUST right, AND I have a bunch of keyboard shorcuts to economize the MOST MOST frequently used words in txt and/or surfing (don't, passwords, good night, xoxo, etc.)

Please be nice since it's my first write up and make sure to ask me if you have any questions regarding the editing of these files!