New user questions about keyboard options

[pcskibum]

Greetings, and first of all thanks to those people who have taken their time to research/build new firmware, and document how to make this cool little device work better than new. I particularly like the work being done with Android. That's going to be amazing in a few months.

I picked up a Sprint HTC Touch on Saturday and spent all day Sunday glued to the little screen. Two questions I have, and I'll post them separately to keep the thread subjects clear.

As a long time Treo user my biggest concern was the lack of a keyboard. I've tried the iPhone and it's great on keyboard usage, so I was willing to give the Touch a try. Have to say I'm impressed so far, but it seems like one thing would make it better. Is there a way to connect one of the physical buttons to a utility that would swap the screen from portrait to landscape mode?

The Touch seems to work best in portrait orientation, so I find myself reading an e-mail and then wanting to switch to landscape mode to get the biggest keyboard possible to write my response. After sending the message I want to toggle back to portrait orientation.

So far I can only change screen orientation by navigating out of the application I'm running. So two keyboard questions really:

1) How to toggle screen orientation with a button press.

2) How to get the "best" (i.e. biggest, fastest, most accurate, prettiest) keyboard.

Thanks.

[Fam Money]

I'm a new Touch owner as well, received mine this past Friday, and I had the same questions.

1. Click Start->Settings->Buttons
The only button you can configure with the stock ROM is the camera button on the right side. It allows 2 settings, one for short press and one for long press.

I would imagine that a hacked ROM would probably allow more customization but I am unsure.

2. From what I've read most seem to prefer TouchPal. I'm using it right now and it is an improvement over the stock keyboard. Don't know how great it is as this is the only 3rd party KB I've tried.
http://www.cootek.com/

[LoriInWA]

You can check out the spb full keyboard. http://www.wireless-apps.net/desc.php?d=d1&id=42055

and then map it to the camera button per the post above.

[oldgarfield]

You can use AE Button Plus to map any key to "rotate screen"

[iamhutch]

Touchpal is by the far the best keyboard app i've used.

PCM Keyboard is ok, and then the rest of the keyboard layouts I've tried seem pretty useless in comparison

[dicast]

there are also other layout that would works with pcm keyboard check them out.

[pcskibum]

Well, so far I've installed the SPB Full Screen Keyboard, and hooked that to the camera button. This is perfect. I can toggle between screen orientation exactly the way I hoped. (And the camera button still takes pictures in the camera application.)

Actually wish the keyboard was a little smaller so I could get a little more text on the screen. The typing window is pretty small. But so far so good. I'll try the other recommendations, but this is exactly the kind of thing I wanted.

Thanks for the help.

[oldgarfield]

I like TouchPal's feature to allow mixed input with different languages without switching the input panel. Very handy for me.

Originally Posted by iamhutch

Touchpal is by the far the best keyboard app i've used.

PCM Keyboard is ok, and then the rest of the keyboard layouts I've tried seem pretty useless in comparison

[joe3789]

Originally Posted by pcskibum

Well, so far I've installed the SPB Full Screen Keyboard, and hooked that to the camera button. This is perfect. I can toggle between screen orientation exactly the way I hoped. (And the camera button still takes pictures in the camera application.)

Actually wish the keyboard was a little smaller so I could get a little more text on the screen. The typing window is pretty small. But so far so good. I'll try the other recommendations, but this is exactly the kind of thing I wanted.

Thanks for the help.

I like PocketCM Keyboard. Check the forum there for the iPhone layout. It works better on the WM6 devices than iPhone's keyboard works on the iPhone ROFL

[Genjinaro]

I'm going to chime in and say Resco Keyboard is the way to go.
http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/keyboard/default.asp