Yet another finger keybord (gui mock-up).

[Jonathon Suggs]

Lars Hallberg wrote:
> You mean 8 drag directions + just press+relese... 9 functions per key. 
> Might work. Guess testing on the device is how to find out. But 6x5 
> keyboard with 8 drag directions give:
>
> 6 9 9 9 9 6
> 6 9 9 9 9 6
> 4 6 6 6 6 4
>
> A total of 128 'keys'... Good *if* it works :-)
As someone who used MessageEase, which is what I think this topic is 
somewhat related to, my opinion is below.
http://www.exideas.com/ME/faq.html

Especially since the screen is smaller than most pda's, the actual 
button sizes need to be even larger to make it easy to hit what you 
meant without having to concentrate too much.  The version that I used 
had two setups.  One had lots of buttons that allowed you to input most 
any character, the other had only a 4x4 grid (shown in that link).  It 
had just 3x3 that were used for input, with 6 others that allowed for 
switching modes (uppercase, text/numeric, punctuation).  I personally 
found that *MUCH* easier to use with just my fingers.

Considering that just a 3x3 grid allows for 56 combinations (which is 
quite a lot).  If you surround a 3x3 grid with 7 "switches", you can 
achieve 7*56 or 392 different keys, all from just a 4x4 grid!  So not 
only would the buttons be much larger, but you would also be able to 
have a much higher key density.
6 9 6 X
6 9 6 X
4 6 4 X
X X X X

I guess what I am trying to say is that less is more, and that is even 
more so with buttons competing for screen real estate.

-Jonathon