Is there some way to turn the predictive dictionary off?

[Ken Restivo]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 12:27:02PM +1000, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:01:47 -0700 Ken Restivo <ken at restivo.org> babbled:
> 
> > > directly in. the idea is that full-qwerty is for terminal junkies or those
> > > with a stylus and who
> >                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > 								  that would
> > be me. 
> 
> many more than just you... if my observation is not totally off (i actually
> read/listen to a lot more than i reply to, so i hope in many ways to just
> absorb what people want... and make mental notes of it.). i can definitely see
> why you want it (note - even if you want something - i might not always
> agree... but i will always discuss it as it may be that you THINK you want X
> but in reality you really want Y, and have just arrived at the wrong
> conclusion of wanting X - and if Y were implemented it'd give you the
> functionality of X... but as i said - i'll always make it clear that i'm trying
> to give you what you want... just trying to give it to you in a way that is
> better :)
> 
> > And, probably, I'd guess a lot of people who would shell out twice the price
> > of an iPhone, just because it runs Linux, would also be very, very likely to
> > be a terminal junkie. 
> 
> no surprise here.. though the iphone is not 1/2 the price. last i checked its
> about 2-3 times the price... if you buy it unlocked - which is comparing apples
> to apples... (no pun intended). remember at that "1/2" price tag you are paying
> the iphone off over 2 years of contract - and the actual price is much more. :)
> 
> > > dictionary to use (as i have read here
> > > - people seem to want to be able to select language for dictionary and
> > > layouts - often separately).
> > 
> > Sounds great.
> 
> as i said... i'm doing my own thing anyway... but it wont be in ASU - it'll be
> some fork or hidden code features u'll need to go hacking at.
> 
> > > regular english (or german, french etc.), and still maintain a small
> > > footprint.
> > 
> > Very nice feature! Would help a lot, kind of like bash completion. Keystrokes
> > on a touchscreen could really benefit from this.
> 
> hmm. right now the dictionary code doesnt know completion - it just does
> matching. but fuzzy matching - or in theory. that means you need to type the
> WHOLE word - u cant just complete (doing completion in addition to fuzzy
> matching is a lot more expensive lookup-wise so i'm simplifying the expense of
> the fuzzy dict matching by not doing completions - i can go into detail why
> completions WITH fuzzy matching are not likely to be viable... but if you trust
> me - it saves me explaining... :) )
> 
> > > qtopia's keyboard layout is hard-coded into the keyboard. no files to go
> > > edit.
> > 
> > Auuughhh!!! OK, my phone is once again a brick.
> > 
> > It's funny how it goes from being a great device to being more or less
> > useless at least once every two days... this is normal for a product under
> > heavy development. But it is also frustrating.
> 
> :(
> 
> > The hard-coded QPE keyboard that has replaced Illume has no control key. No
> > ALT key. No up or down arrows either. And the keyboard layout is hard-coded,
> > which seems fatally limiting. How will users who don't speak English use it
> > if there are no .kbd files?
> 
> indeed it has none of these keys.

Then how can people in countries that use non-US keyboard layouts and charsets use the phone even to enter their friends names, or to text them to say "hello"?

> 
> > The text-editable .kbd files approach was a *great* idea. As was the "qwerty"
> > button (which I was able to bring back thanks to someone posting a file with
> > it), and the pop-up for picking different keyboard types, etc... all stuff
> > that delighted this user.... and has been summarily removed.
> 
> :) thanks :)
>

No prob. The "summarily removed" part really sucks though :-)

> > What packages do I need to hack, and how, to bring the Illume keyboard-- the
> > one with the configurable .kbd files-- back again? Or, is the QPE keyboard
> > going to get this text-editable keyboard layout functionality soon (and, how
> > soon)?
> 
> illume is what u want top hack.. and its 1 line of code in:
> 
> e_mod_win.c
> 
>    // FIXME: run kbd app or use internal
> #if 0
>    //enable for now to test internal kbd
>    vkbd_int = e_kbd_int_new(e_module_dir_get(m),
>                             e_module_dir_get(m),
>                             e_module_dir_get(m));
> #endif
> 
>

Fantastic! Thanks! Now I need to either get my moko Makefile working on my AMD64 system, or otherwise see what got decided in that "public buildhost" thread.

> see that #if 0... make it a #if 1
> 
> :) (it's just waiting for me to actually make this config so of course i leave
> little poopie droppings along the way as i get around to things... for now this
> is my quick and dirty on/off switch for the internal keyboard).

Cool. Having it user-configurable would definitely be the right way to go. If that's coming in a short time (i.e. days) then maybe I'll just wait it out.

>
> > > > Also, bringing up the "zoom" doesn't make the dictionary go away. It's
> > > > still changing my "ls" to "is".
> > > 
> > 
> > Actually I got that to work. If I don't let the prediction even get started,
> > and hold down the zoom key from the *first* letter, then the prediction
> > doesn't even start up. But once I let it get started, it doesn't seem to want
> > to stop, even if I hold the zoom down.
> 
> :(
> 

If it's still doing that repeatably a day or so from now, I'll file a bug on it.

-ken