Space between last typed word when selecting suggested punctuation

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Type in a word
2. Press spacebar
3. Select a terminating punctuation mark (exclamation, question, 
right-parenthesis, etc.) in "Suggestions" bar

What is the expected behavior? What do you see instead?

In the previous version I was using (1.22 from F-droid repo) the terminating 
punctuation mark will be appended after the word *without* any space in between 
them. However, in version 1.29, a space is added in between the word and the 
terminating punctuation mark.

When the left-parenthesis mark is selected from the "Suggestions" bar, the 
space between the previous word and the left-parenthesis mark is preserved, 
which is desirable as the left-parenthesis is a non-terminating mark.

What version of Hacker's Keyboard are you using? (See top of the app's
Settings menu.) On what phone or tablet?

Version 1.29 on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 P7500, Android version 3.1
Same issue on a Samsung Galaxy Note N7000, Android version 2.3.5

If applicable, does this affect the 4-row or 5-row layout, or both? Which
language(s)?

Affects both, in English.

Please provide any additional information below.

I think automatically adding the space in between the last word typed and the 
terminating punctuation defeats the purpose of showing the punctuations in the 
"Suggestions" bar. The old behavior (in version 1.22) is more desirable in my 
opinion.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by fontanil...@gmail.com on 17 Jan 2012 at 1:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Do you have the "Auto-complete" setting turned on?

The way it's supposed to work in current versions is as follows:

- if the "Auto-complete" setting is off, the spacebar inserts a "hard space", 
and this doesn't get removed when adding punctuation from the suggestions list. 
If you want to accept a suggestion, tap the suggested word in the suggestion 
bar. Then it'll insert it with a "soft space", and you'll get the punctuation 
behavior you expect.

- if "Auto-complete" is on, the spacebar accepts the currently highlighted 
suggestion and adds it with a "soft space", and you should also get the 
punctuation behavior you expect.

The reason for the change was that the old behavior made it very difficult to 
type punctuation consistently, especially after adding ":" and ";" to the list 
of characters that should be space-swapped. The keyboard needs to distinguish 
"Test: " from "Test :-)".

Original comment by Klaus.We...@gmail.com on 17 Jan 2012 at 6:04

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've added this explanation to the FAQ: 
http://code.google.com/p/hackerskeyboard/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions?ts=132751
6309&updated=FrequentlyAskedQuestions#Unwanted_spaces_before_punctuation

Are you ok with the new behavior as described? I think the distinction between 
terminating and non-terminating punctuation didn't work very well, especially 
for ":" and ";", and I think the new way is more consistent. But if you feel 
strongly about it, I could look into changing it or adding an option for the 
space bar handling.

Original comment by Klaus.We...@gmail.com on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

BTW, I'm thinking about making the spacing behavior configurable. Please let me 
know if this is something you'd want, if not I'd prefer to avoid adding yet 
another option :-)

Original comment by Klaus.We...@gmail.com on 30 Jan 2012 at 5:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue 257 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by Klaus.We...@gmail.com on 3 Jul 2012 at 8:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Definitely a vote from me to make the behaviour configurable.

I often type things such as "Hello there :-)", using the space-completion 
feature to correct typos such as "Hello thete".. but every single time, I get 
"Hello there: -)" instead, which is really not what I intended at all. I then 
have to go back and correct it, which mostly defeats the purpose of the 
time-saving feature :)

I would suggest perhaps having the additional option able to configure which 
characters count in terms of punctuation / soft-spaces. For example, I think 
that clearly a full stop is OK, and a colon or semicolon are not.. but other 
people may have different usage patterns, so configuration would be good.

Original comment by jmhunt...@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2013 at 4:36