Here’s one of those things that’s been around for a little bit, but well hidden. If you’re a fan of the stock Google keyboard but would love to have a dedicated number row – particularly given the size of many of today’s smartphones – you can do it. It’s not just an Android 5.0 Lollipop feature, so you’re able to do this on the Nexus 6 or LG G3 or HTC One or whatever.
You will, however, have to do a little digging in the keyboard settings.
One of those little tips that can really make your phone better.
That is a pretty handy tip. I like having the numbers visible, and so far I like the “PC” layout.
Or, just use the AOSP keyboard, which puts all the numbers as long-press options for the top row, all the symbols as long-press options for the middle row, and most punctuation marks as long-press options for the bottom row.
IOW, you have the equivalent of an 88-key keyboard using just the standard 3-row layout keyboard.
Once you get used to using the long-press options for punctuation and numbers, you’ll find it impossible to switch to a keyboard without them.
And gesture/swipe typing is available with the AOSP keyboard.
Would be nice if there was a separate, installable APK for the AOSP keyboard available in the Play Store, though. Currently, you need to run a custom ROM to get it.
Now that’s cool. I didn’t even know AOSP had a different keyboard, but I’m not going to mess with custom roms just for that. I don’t suppose anyone’s packaged it up, even outside the playstore? That long press idea would be nice on my G. Question though, if long presses are remapped, how do you get accented letters which don’t have dedicated keys?
A “short” long-press (meaning you release as soon as the new key popup appears) prints the number or symbol associated with that key.
A “long” long-press (meaning you keep holding after the new key popup appears) switches to an extended popup with multiple new letters/numbers to choose from. Slide the finger over to it, and then release.
For example, a short long-press on the letter E will print a 3. A long long-press on the letter E will display the letter E five times with different accents, along with the number 3 (6 characters total).
Same for all the vowels and several consonants.
The only time I actually have to press the “symbol” key to switch keymaps is when I need < > [ ] or =. Everything else is just a long-press on the main keyboard keys.
That sounds just like the Swype keyboard on the N9 – my favourite of all the touchscreen keyboards I’ve tried so far.
It appears someone has separated it into an installable APK:
http://download.apks.org/?server=12&apkid=com.android.inputmethod.l…
Note the name difference compared to the Google Keyboard APK (com.google.android.blahblahblah).
I have not tried installing this, but it’s good to know it’s available, as there are some Android ROMs that don’t use the AOSP keyboard.
Hope it works for you.
Edited 2014-11-21 20:44 UTC
Rubbish for anything other than English, sadly. It still uses the US keyboard layout instead of using a specialized layout. (for example Spanish lack the ñ key)
Wait… so you’re saying that the “English (US) (PC)” keyboard layout does *not* have non English chars in it?
I wonder why they did that… English (US) only contains English (US) chars… Its like they’re trying to tell me something! If only I could read “English (US)”! Then… maybe I could understand what “English (US)” meant!
That’s not what was said. The OP is saying, as I said in my post as well, that it gives the PC option for all languages but regardless of the language used, you always get the US English layout and you lose your special keys.
I had my Nexus 7 cunfigured this way before the screen gave out on it. It’s awesome, if you’ve got the room for it. My phone, Moto G, is a bii small to make this comfortable with my rather large fingers. If I ever get a tablet again I will again configure the keyboard this way.
The one drawback to this is, when not using English, you lose the dedicated keys for any special letters used in other languages. E.g. I can set it to Swedish PC and it will give me the keyboard, but without the three extra letters that would be there otherwise. The same thing happens with the Dvorak layout built into Android as it also doesn’t accomodate other language versions of the layout.
Does anybody know how to get arrow keys? Using a phone to remote control a PC, this is a big pain point.
Hacker’s Keyboard:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketworkstation….
For a real PC keyboard.
I’m using 3 keyboards on my Android devices:
– AOSP for general needs (95% of my time)
– Hacker’s keyboard as soon as I am in a local shell or sshing
– Google Korean input for my Korean input needs
I install Hacker’s Keyboard on all my Android devices. Arrow keys, Ctrl key, function keys and a separate number row simply make this a winner for any sort of serious editing/command line work. Ever tried to stab the caret into submission to move it a few chars to the left or right – it’s painful…arrow keys to the rescue!
If you like google’s keyboard (other than the lack of arrows/customization), you can try one of these:
1. NextApp keyboard is based on kitkat AOSP, can link to google’s swiping library if that’s your think, and adds a panel with arrows/function keys. It also has a full PC layout similar to hackers keyboard.
2. Kii Keyboard also have arrow keys, but it’s no longer in the market. Kii also supports long press for symbols/punctuation on the main layout. It also supports dual language input, you can type and have predictions in many languages without switching. It works surprisingly well once you learn its limitations.
The issue with hackers keyboard (in my opinion) is that in portrait the PC layout is very uncomfortable. You can set the classic 4 rows smartphone layout but then you have no access to arrow keys (hackers has no secondary panel with arrows, only punctuation). The above keyboards can put arrows in the main layout, or have them in a secondary panel only when needed.
Otherwise a few keyboards like swiftkey also have arrow keys but they’re not my thing.
Edited 2014-11-24 01:06 UTC
I plugged a keyboard+mouse (a lenovo thinkpad USB keyboard with trackpoint) into my phone with an USB OTG cable last week – and it made it immediately obvious how limiting the touch keyboard still is compared to a real one. I’m now considering getting a bluetooth keyboard or something.