HTC Hero Soft Keyboard Issues

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. with ase 0.11 installed I Settings->Applications->Manage
applications->ASE->Uninstall
2. Using OI File Manager I Delete /sdcard/ase
3. I install ase r13 from
http://android-scripting.googlecode.com/files/ase_r13.apk and start a Shell
Terminal.

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

According to announcement for ase r13 and fix of issue 106 I expected to be
able to get a soft keyboard on HTC Hero now.

How do I bring up a soft keyboard?

Trackball press does nothing, moving trackball inserts escape sequences in
Terminal.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

HTC Build number
2.73.405.5

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by adrian.a...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2009 at 11:40

• Merged into: #345

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The keyboard should show up if you just tap in the terminal. On my Magic, it 
even shows 
up automatically without tapping.

Original comment by damonkoh...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2009 at 11:47

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for the encouragement, Damon!

I now found some underlying issues and finally have basic ASE soft
keyboard support on my HTC Hero as a side effect:

Input method Mobile Write (Settings->Locale & text->Text settings->MobileWrite 
Trial)
causes no keyboard to show up in terminals (1). Tapping does not bring it up 
either.

Input method TouchPal does work with restrictions:
o Enabling DICT support causes characters not to make it to the terminal (2).
o No keboard shows up (even by tapping) when terminal is started in landscape 
mode
(3) (workaround is to rotate into portrait, tap screen (required) to get 
keyboard,
then back to landscape)

Input method Touch Input has same rotation issues (4).
Long keypress (e.g. to get to - above n key) always inserts unshifted key (e.g. 
n)
first (5) then - (workaround is to switch to number entry mode to get - without 
long
key press)

General issue for TouchPal and Touch Input:
Typos cannot be corrected by moving cursor back into text with trackball.
Trackball just emits escape sequences ESC-[A thru ESC-[D (6)

Do you want me to file 6 separate issues for all these?

Adrian

Original comment by adrian.a...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2009 at 12:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I think (5) is the most critical one. It can neither be worked around (like 
(3)) nor
is caused by a 3rd party input method.
Although it might be caused by HTC's Sense UI if you don't have the problem on 
the Magic.

What is interesting is that different from you, I can *not* switch to number 
entry
mode either. I can hold the "12#" button to get some additional characters from 
the
'in-place context menu' (:, /, @, etc.), but just pressing it does *not* switch 
to
number entry mode. That means I also can't input any special characters, so
expressions like "1+2" are not possible.

Reproduction steps again, to avoid any confusion:
  1. hold 'q', hold 'm', hold 'w'.
Expected characters on the console:
  "1+2"
Actual characters on the console:
  "q1m+w2"

I'd love to see another hotfix release for this, Damon, so coding on the Hero is
finally possible. :)

Original comment by hheimbue...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2009 at 5:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hmmh, I tried again and the "12#" button always works for me in ASE r13 with 
"Touch
Input" input method.
I varied these but could no make the keyboard toggle stop functioning:
Landscape, Portrait
QWERTY
Prediction on/off
Spell correction on/off
Sound feedback on/off
Vibrate when typing on/off

How about the "cogwheel" button and the "keyboard" button to the left of the
SPACEBAR, do they work for you?
They work fine here.

I have
Model number
HTC Hero
Firmware version
1.5
Baseband version
63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18
Kernel version
2.6.27...
Build number
2.73.405.5 ...
Software version
1.0.0.A6288

Original comment by adrian.a...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2009 at 6:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Options ("cogwheel") and Close Keyboard work as intended for me (i.e. as in 
other apps).

I also played around with the alternative input methods. First of all, there 
seems to
be a related bug (7), that prevents me from changing the input method ("Keyboard
types") while inside ASE. Any change just won't have any effect, even when 
restarting
the Python terminal. The new setting will show up in the menu, but I still have 
the
old keyboard type. Switching works fine and immediately in other apps. As soon 
as I
have brought up the keyboard once in another app (the browser for example), the 
new
type shows up in ASE as well -- and can't be changed again.

These alternative keyboard types allow me to enter my above example. However, 
even
there, I can not switch to number entry mode either. (I tried both Phone Keypad 
and
Compact QWERTY.)

I, too, have tried toggling most of the options and have tested both portrait 
and
landscape mode. I could not figure out any setting that allows me to use the 
"12#"
button to switch to number entry mode.

Model number
HTC Hero
Firmware version
1.5
Baseband version
63.18.55.06U_6.35.04.25
Kernel version
2.6.27-... / htc-kernel@and18-2 #521
Build number
1.76.405.6 ...
Software version
1.0.0.A6288

Original comment by hheimbue...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2009 at 6:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm running the latest HTC ROM version, since I also suffered from the all 
light and
audio jack off problem:

http://androidforums.com/htc-hero/7583-led-buttons-lights-dont-work.html#post578
63

Original comment by adrian.a...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2009 at 6:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yeah, I don't have that installed yet, as I couldn't figure out whether 
upgrading to
Donut will require me to reinstall everything, too. (In which case I'd rather 
wait
and do both in one run.)

But again: I have had this problem in no other app, so there must be something 
fishy
with how ASE handles the soft keyboard, too. :)

Original comment by hheimbue...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2009 at 6:55

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I hope to have a Hero device soon. I'll be able to reproduce/address these 
issues 
then. Thanks for your patience! In the meantime, the soft keyboard should work 
just 
fine from the script editor. In the editor, use "Save & Run" and in the 
terminal use 
"Exit & Edit" to quickly jump between the two and iterate on a script.

Original comment by damonkoh...@gmail.com on 4 Oct 2009 at 7:58

• Changed title: HTC Hero Soft Keyboard Issues
• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I hope a developer reads this.

I did notice a few things in ASE:
* when i was editing a Python script (did not test other languages, sorry) i 
switched to landscape and the 
text did not have line breaks, only significant whitespace between the default 
file's contents.
* when i brought up a shell interpreter, i tried to input a pipe/vertical bar 
character. Did not show up.
* "su" and "sudo" commands return immeately "permission denied." on run as if 
they don't exist (i 
didn't touch the $PATH variable, btw).

Original comment by adam2new@gmail.com on 25 Dec 2009 at 1:39

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@adam2new 

The first two things are the same on my phone, so confirmed. Please make them 
as 
separate issues. That's the only way they can be fixed.

As for the "su" and "sudo" issue: Android applications are 'sandboxed'. So they 
don't really have access to any resources other than those assigned to current 
process. Besides that, :) they are not installed.

Original comment by MeanEYE.rcf on 25 Dec 2009 at 2:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I can confirm (3) and (5). From these, (5) is clearly the most annoying, since 
it prevents 
the keyboard from being used as usual, and also from typing characters such as 
accented letters, which are not listed on the "123" input keyboard.

Tested on HTC Hero with ROM version 2.73.405.38 and kernel 2.6.27-mck-
teknologist-1.91.

Original comment by fini...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2010 at 2:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Brilliant, getting Python onto Android!
really needs GUI to go mainstream. Find Java a pain :)

I can confirm the following with onscreen phone keyboard layout in portrait 
view  
and qwerty in landscape view on the hero:
The landscape 'no line breaks' in text in the editor mode.
The trackball producing characters in terminal.
The keyboard hiding entry line in landscape mode in terminal when the entry is 
below 
the on-screen keyboard. You have to kill the keyboard to see the entered text.
(3)The in ability to get the keyboard back in terminal landscape view (switch 
to 
portrait press and rotate back again).
(5)The landscape 'hold key to get other character' gives letter and character.
In portrait mode the XT9 mode predictive text mode does not print word out when 
selected from selections but if you do individual letters it works. E.g. press 
'p' 
then select 'p' from the choices.
ABC mode is very slow and the letter is not picked at the point that another 
key is 
pressed, you have to wait for each character so characters can get missed out, 
in 
Terminal.

Extra finding (may not be a problem).
The trackball in portrait mode when the special key is set to the '@'. Pressing 
the 
trackball does the same as a new line in Terminal
When scrolling in editor view the first press and flick always does not scroll, 
it 
returns to start point.

However. I can use the 12# key to access characters by long hold and switch to 
character screen in both landscape and portrait mode in terminal.
Thank you
ASE                1.6
Firmware:          1.5
Baseband version:  63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18
Kernel version:    2.6.27-8dd6deee htc-kernel@and18-2 
Build number:      2.73.61.5 146733 CL#61267
Software version:  1.0.0.A6288

Original comment by Panquisitive on 17 Jan 2010 at 12:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm marking this as a duplicate of the issue to replace the ASE terminal with 
ConnectBot's terminal because that will resolve this issue as well.

Original comment by damonkoh...@gmail.com on 6 Jun 2010 at 2:24

• Changed state: Duplicate