Keypress Events Not Always Registering

[andyk]

with regard to the motorola droid's soft keyboard, typing keys will light up the button, but the text will not be entered in the field.

cyril mentioned that this could be a droid screen-driver issue, but it would be great to know for sure, or to provide a work-around with SKP.

for example:

1. quickly typing "it" will often only enter "t" in the field, even though both keys light up on the keyboard. i thought this may be registering as a swipe event, but it also occurs on other combinations as well.

2. quickly typing "he" will often only enter "e" in the field.

this problem seems to be mostly impacting the "g", "h", and "i" keys, or perhaps that area of the keyboard.

i wonder if the hit areas could be expanded for those keys, or whether there is an underlying issue with keypress events being registered by the system.

there have been a few other reports on the web about this.

[andyk]

just ported the HTC IME keyboard to the droid.

i discovered that the droid's hardware is fine. all the problem words that i mentioned (it, he) work absolutely fine with the htc keyboard. in addition, they register really fast.

i believe there is a bug with the stock keyboard (and SKP if it uses the same code) to register keypresses.

[cyril]

Well... is the HTC keyboard really multitouch ? I mean, can you hold a key with one finger and type with another one (while still holding the first finger) ?
- If yes, I don't understand how it can work better than smart keyboard (there must be an explanation...), as I really noticed bugs in the way Android reports multitouch keypresses
- If no, I can understand why it works better. But that's precisely what is different in smart keyboard

[andyk]

from what i can tell, the HTC IME keyboard for droid is not multitouch. but on the other hand, it is very responsive, quick, and precise.

i dont understand why SKP would not register both keys (for example, "it") in quick succession. i have errors all the time with SKP because the keyboard fails to register keys.

is this somehow a byproduct of adding multitouch? it can't be, since the stock keyboard has the same problem and is not multitouch.

whats going on here? is there any way to adjust this?

[cyril]

I cannot really anwser... I tried hard to reproduce this failure with "it" or "he" and it always works perfectly on my HTC Hero... so probably the HTC keyboard has something better, but it seems the hardware is not completely innocent.. still waiting for a Droid to test )

[andyk]

i've heard that the android 2.1 update could possibly fix this issue. i sure hope that it does.

[andyk]

just installed skp 1.12.1 and this problem still persists.

i can almost guarantee that this is not due to the droid hardware.

with the htc ime keyboard installed on the droid, it will register every single keypress at every fraction of a second. the only thing it wont do is multitouch. but if your finger strikes the key just a 1/8, 1/16 of a second before or after, it still registers. any key combo. both 'he' and 'it' too.

there has got to be a problem with the stock keyboard and skp registering keypresses.

moto droid stock 2.0.1

[cyril]

Yes actually 1.12.1 was not supposed to fix this problem, but another one
Anyway I know that the core of the keyboard (highly based on the stock keyboard) would deserve a complete rewrite to improve performance, but this is not something I will have time to do in the short term, days only have 24 hours

[andyk]

isnt that the truth.

well ive heard that there are keyboard improvements with the android 2.1 update... perhaps you can integrate that core once it arrives.

[cyril]

Well... it's already based on android 2.1