Why Fitaly is painful to use: punctuation design seems to me like an afterthought. Must switch to a different mode to access punctuation, and there are several modes in which to look. Sigh.
Why MessagEase is painful to use: no visual feedback. Either you keep your eyes on the keyboard and discover mistakes later when you look up, or you keep your eyes on the text, blindly tapping and making lots of mistakes. Grrr.
I'm frustrated because I need convenience! Arrggh!
I wish that Fitaly would put *all* common punctuation on the main screen, like MessagEase does; or that MessagEase would provide visual feedback, like Fitaly does. Dang - Fitaly's got all these big keys that I hardly ever use taking up precious room on the main screen! - room that could be used for punctuation keys.
I guess poor punctuation design is less of an evil than non-existent visual feedback. Sigh. I *love* the modeless MessagEase design, but the lack of visual feedback is killing it for me.
You know, I've never given the default Qwerty keyboard a chance, and I think I shall. There are some good things about it:
- free
- drag left anywhere to backspace
- drag right anywhere to space
- number and punctuation keys are large
- visual feedback when you tap a key
- punctuation is positioned in familiar places
The built-in Qwerty keyboard is something of a discovery for me. I look forward to trying it out!!
Last edited by JonathanAquino; 12-19-04 at 05:42 PM.
I use Fitaly and have used MessagEase. I went with Fitaly. The placement of the keys are a bit more intuitive than MessagEase for me, but I agree whole-heartedly about Fitaly's lack of thought in placing vital punctuation keys. They don't even have some of the symbols I need so I'm forced to swtich to the normal default keyboard mid-sentece then switch back to Fitaly to finish. What a pain in the arse.
I also use a Full Screen Keyboard sometimes for text heavy situations when I don't have my Dell Foldable keyboard or it's not convient to break out the Dell Keyboard like waiting in line at the bank.
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Have you tried customizing some of the keys for punctuation? For example, I've got the letters "A" and "a" with a stroke going towards the left for an "@" symbol.
I find that the level of customization available with Fitaly is pretty useful for situations like this. Also, it's only been a week since I've used Fitaly, but I'm up to around 35 wpm already!
Hello Jonathan,
I know this thread is already two years old but I came across it only today. Maybe since that time you became really happy with one of the methods.
If not, you could take a look at our solution SpeedScript. It combines tapping and sliding and you have the punctuation on the same level and a visual feedback as well:
Note that the punctuation is indicated - might be an idea for SpeedScript.
Thanks a lot for your input, Jon.
We decided to arrange the punctuation thematically.
As we have always 8 punctuation marks, symbols or functions which can be written from one key, the indication would become unmanageable or very small.
Ulrike
Interesting that this should come up today a I just finished reading reviews of three on screen boards, Fitaly being one of them. Let me lay out my needs, and you advise. I have had my X51V for quite awhile but do to ill health haven't been able to do anything with it. Since I have rheumatoid arthritis in my hands, something like this is essential. Some days are worse than others and something with fewer key strokes would be good. Also easy to use as I am not a techie. Any thoughts?
Hello Jonathan,
I know this thread is already two years old but I came across it only today. Maybe since that time you became really happy with one of the methods.
If not, you could take a look at our solution SpeedScript. It combines tapping and sliding and you have the punctuation on the same level and a visual feedback as well:
Hmmm...Looks great but I can't get this to work on my 2003SE device. Hangs on soft-reset after install had to do hard reset to get out of bootup screen. Tried disabling Fitaly, still same problem. Any ideas ??
EDIT: especially any newbies reading this, FYI any program can cause install issues if there is a conflict with another program on the device ! (often the other program's fault , maybe a start-up program or Today app etc etc). Always back up before any install In no way am I implying SS has a problem in itself. Have since installed via cab file, also disabled magic button before install just in case this caused an issue - not sure if this is so but all worked well. Love this keyboard already !!!
Hmmm...Looks great but I can't get this to work on my 2003SE device. Hangs on soft-reset after install had to do hard reset to get out of bootup screen. Tried disabling Fitaly, still same problem. Any ideas ??
Maybe their techs can give you some advise. I have it on my 2003SE and it runs fine, although it reverts back to the MS keyboard occasionally. Not sure why.
Interesting that this should come up today a I just finished reading reviews of three on screen boards, Fitaly being one of them. Let me lay out my needs, and you advise. I have had my X51V for quite awhile but do to ill health haven't been able to do anything with it. Since I have rheumatoid arthritis in my hands, something like this is essential. Some days are worse than others and something with fewer key strokes would be good. Also easy to use as I am not a techie. Any thoughts?
I would be very happy if you could give our solution a try. SpeedScript is easy to use and designed in a way that lets you write lots of text with minimal hand movement because it combines tapping and drawing strokes (background information: see links below).
When you write a character, the probability that the next one is a vowel or the space is 50%. For this reason, vowels and space are grouped together in the blue window that appears after you write the first letter. There's no need to reposition the pen: you just continue writing.
It would be great if SpeedScript would meet your needs.
Best regards
ulrike
You can download a free trial version for your X51V here
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they remembered to put in the vitals 
