If I use the German +äöü keyboard, I still have to press s for a longer time to get ß. This is not really a problem, because the character is not that often, but I have one suggestion:
Right now, if you press s for a longer time, first you get # and then, if you move to the right, get ß. Could you change this, so pressing s longer will display ß and if you move to the right, display #?
Even if ß is not really that common, it is still more common than #
Well, if I do that, I should also change the alt label of the "s" key if I do that, otherwise I'm sure people will complain that when they press "s" they get ß instead of #
Well, I can only speak for myself, but I really think that ß is more important and common than #.
After all, ß is a letter, # is not. It is not as common as äöü, but it is a letter of the German alphabet after all.
I really, really think, ß should be the first choice. I would not advise changing the alt label, though, because I think everybody will guess that ß is on the s key, but not everybody will know where the # character is.
One similar request:
Although they are not "officially" letters of the German alphabet, the accent grave and agut (´and `) are important and also sometimes used, for example in the words Café or in the personal name André. The German computer keyboard offers a dead key for these two diacritics, so I wonder if you could add them? The dead key ^ is also offered on the computer keyboard (although I don't know for sure how often that character is used):
á, à, â, é, è, ê etc.
They are primarily used for French loan words, but these words are really often used in German (e.g. Café is the place, Kaffee is coffee. Cafe is not correct, and not seen anywhere, because é is so easily available on German keyboards).
Would it maybe be possible to offer a setting in the options if all special characters could be displayed? Characters like æ,ç,ð,ł,ŝ etc. are not used in ordinary German, but sometimes they are still used in names (e.g. the Czech car producer "Škoda Auto" or the abbreviation "ČSSR" for Czechoslovakia etc), so it would be nice to be able to type them. Of course, one could always change to e.g. czech keyboard layout, but I think it would be a little bit too cumbersome for only one character.
The default HTC keyboard (or is it Android?) also offers many of these characters.
But because some people may not need that, a special setting to activate it would be sufficient, I guess. This would also be interesting for other latin based languages.
Well, ä is a letter too, and it is not the primary choice I could give many examples (in other languages) where extra letters are accessible with a long press, and are still not the primary choice. Each time I try to change the order (as you suggest) to give priority to real letters instead of symbols, I got complains immediately that the long press should give what is written on the alt label... So I'm waiting for other people's feedback before doing something like this.
About your second request, a generic solution would be to use the option "Force latin layout" with "English (international)" layout, which has (almost) all the letters of latin languages accessible with a long press. However I'm not sure this is a solution for you as you will probably ask me to do the same with a QWERTZ keyboard
Well, as I said, I can only speak for myself (but I also asked my brother about his opinion): ß should really be the primary choice.
I especially use the German + äöü keyboard so that I can type German without a dictionary (I would never chat or write sms in standard German. This is just weird. But unfortunately, with a dictionary, I cannot use local slang) and don't have to press a for a longer time and then search for ä. Still, the ß is not really comfortably available.
Maybe you could leave it for the standard German keyboard, where the people may use a dictionary (so it is not necessary to access ß), but make ß the primary choice in the äöü keyboard? Please! Since I got my android cellphone, I cannot recall one time when I typed #. The ß, in contrast, is an ordinary letter which is really often used.
And please please can you add the vowels with ´ and ` (especially é and è) on the German + äöü keyboard? Although they are not counted as the "official" german alphabet, they are still used for quite some words.
I'm also German and I concur - ß should be the primary choice but # should remain on the keyboard.
Furthermore, on the German keyboard without a, ö, ü (where these letters are accessed through long-pressing a, o and u) it should be the same way (long pressing on a should yield ä as the first result, not @; but the symbol @ should still remain on the keyboard).
