"Modified" sliding feature?

[SaKeygo]

I was wondering about something with respect to a sliding feature. I noticed that you mentioned that you were considering adding it as a feature in the future. Though, I thought of another interesting way you might be able to accomplish a similar effect - with possibly less effort. (I imagine that a sliding feature is probably difficult to implement.)

I noticed on my HTC keyboard - that if I slide my thumb from the end of word to the period, it will give me the last letter and the period.
If I wanted to type s.m.a.r.t. all I have to do is pick each letter, then slide my finger to the period each time. This only seems to work with punctuation.
Maybe you could set up a "modified" sliding system that would do something similar. The first key you touch would select the first letter, the key you slide to and lift your finger off of - would select the second letter (similar to the way a long press allows for selecting alt characters). Given the way SmartKeyboard works with it's predictions, it likely wouldn't take much sliding to complete a word. One of the things that usually makes sliding keyboards a bit of a pain to use, is that they usually don't make predictions from "incomplete" words.

To give an example of what I mean. Let's say that you want to do the word "prediction". You would put your finger on "p", then slide your finger to the letter "r", then lift off your finger to produce "pr". Then do the same thing with "e" to "d". This would give two swipes to produce "pred" which should show "prediction" or "predict" in the suggestion bar.
If you did the word convenient, for example, it would take three swipes and look something like this:

c→o = [co, could, Co, com, cost ....]
n→v = [conv, convey, convert, converter ....]
e→n = [conven, convent, convenient ....]

Having used sliding keyboards, this is one thing I've always wished they could do. I think this would give SmartKeyboard some of the benefits of sliding, most notably avoiding tapping your thumbs as much, and avoiding some of the downsides, which would be having to tap in larger words. Which is what I usually do on sliding keyboards, anyway. Larger words could be "slided" as well - with minimal "keystrokes".

Also, for a more realistic effect as to what this would actually feel like in actual use, you can try double tapping the first letter before sliding your finger across to the second key (hold your finger down on the second tap, then slide), though this is much clumsier and inconvenient than it would be if the feature were were built in.

I also noticed that this is possible to do this effect exactly as described above under certain circumstances:

1. Put the keyboard in compact mode.
2. Choose a letter from the top "QWERTY" row.
3. Quickly slide your finger to a letter in the bottom row.
Note: This is somewhat tricky and has to be done very fast, and with just the right timing.

I tried the word evening.
Hit "er", then quickly slide to "cv"
Hit "er", then quickly slide to "bn"
Hit "ui", then quickly slide to "bn"
Then tap "g"
Just to give an idea of what this would be like to do a whole word.
You could also try TV for a short word.

If gestures provide some problems, you could always adjust the sensitivity.
Another solution would be to change the gesture feature. Make it so that sliding your finger up from the keyboard into the text field is an up gesture. From the text field into the keyboard is down, and maybe up and back down, in a sort of arc shape would be left and right gestures. I'm not really sure how that would work.

Another way to handle gestures. You could make it so that hitting the space bar activates the gestures and sliding up does the up gesture, sliding left from the space bar does left, etc.

You could have the gesture effected by space + certain keys:

For full keyboard
Space + qwe, asd, zx → for left
Space + rtyu, fgh, cvb → for up
Space + iop, jkl, nm → for right

For compact keyboard - this one is a little trickier
Space + qw, as, zx, → for left
Space + er, ty, ui, df, gh, jk, cv, bn → for up
Space + op, l, m → for right

An alternative to this could also be to add the df, jk as left and right instead.

Space + qw, as, df, zx, → for left
Space + er, ty, ui, gh, cv, bn → for up
Space + op, jk, l, m → for right

Unfortunately, there doesn't really seem to be and ideal way to set this up for compact mode.

The T9 mode keys seem large enough to just divide them by the

147→ left, 258→up, 369→ right.

This method might also be useful for gestures on certain phones - I've noticed some posts regarding these problems. Since this seems to be done in a way that is different from the current way it is done. (I'm guessing it is, I really don't know), then it might solve that problem in the process.

Sliding from the keyboard into the space bar could do the down gesture, but it would be nice if that were optional, since phrases such as "to be or not to be" - could be more easily handled by sliding

t, o→[space]
b, e→[space]
o, r→[space]
n→o, t→[space]
t, o→[space]
b, e→[space]

This is actually another phrase that you you play with using the quick method described above. While I imagine that you probably may not want to do this, just describing it feels like it would be too much work. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

[nick.koutrelakos]

I like SKP because it has no sliding... and if you're complaining about too much tapping, more specifically on a larger word, the larger word with often come up in the prediction box since it's so specific after a few taps.

Edit: It's a very well thought out process though.

[SaKeygo]

I figure a lot of people may not like it, or be indifferent to it. Though it may appeal to people who like the slide keyboards a little more. I generally switch around a bit for variety. I still use Smart Keyboard the most, though.

The feature could always be optional. There could be a setting to disable it, if preferred. Most slide keyboards have the use of sliding as optional (to some extent or another). With the setup as described above, if someone just tapped, they likely wouldn't even know it was there.

One big problem is that I can't imagine Cyril would want to create two different gesture formats. For people who would prefer that the gestures not change at all. One for standard use, one for sliding use. While the idea seems simpler, it's possible that it may be harder to implement than it's probably worth.

[nick.koutrelakos]

You might have better luck contacting the dev of a sliding-based keyboard? Just a thought.