Settings for a Better Storm Keyboard
 

While on phonescoop.com, I found keyboard settings to make the keyboard much better. Most of the reviews are dperessing. I don't agree with them as I am very much impressed with my storm. However I'm not a power user. I hope I'm not repeating information here. The onformation is quoted as it's not my information.

"Open the BB menu by pressing the BB Menu button.
Scroll down to 'Options', select by pressing the icon.
Scroll to 'Screen/Keyboard' and select.
Scroll to 'Touchscreen'.

Increase the Tap Interval to 500.
Increase the Hover Period to 1000.
Increase the Swipe Sensitivity to High (6).
Key Rate to Fast."
Please issue your comments upon trying these settings.

Thanks for posting this. I will try them.

That's a really good tip. I appreciate your wisdom.

Works pretty good (y)

Sorry...I can't take any of the credit except for reading the reviews on phonescoop.com. I tried the settings and liked the results. I hope it works for everyone else.

I tried messing around with other setting i think this setting might fit me :)

I like this one the best, I type fairly quickly and I was hating the fact that the keyboard was not as responsive as I would have liked it to be. Since I switched to the setting defined here, I am able to type as fast as i used to on the curve. Actually, i type so fast on the storm the OS has the spinning clock for a second or two to catch up. The the screen would fill up with what I already typed. Thanks for this hint, I have been trying different setting, this one is the bets.

I had that setting for awhile now, and it works very well. Also, the "paper" trick helps it even more

Nice find. Thanks.

Wirelessly posted (Verizon 9530)

Testing this out now. Thanks for the tips!

I just did these settings and I can type a lot faster! Thank you.

Thanks, I wrote them down until January 3rd.

Cheers! that has really made a HUGE improvement, just need to find some exercises now to reduce the size of my thumbs ;-)

he he

Kris

Does anyone know what each of these individual setting affect? Specifically tap interval and hover period.

Was curious about the same thing.

But these settings do work like magic. THANKS!

thanks. seems to be working better...i'll keep you all updated.

Hover to 100 works better for me and makes the blue to black line edit functionality usable. At 1000 you can not edit a line without major delay time.

Thanks for the tips, but sorry, what is the paper trick?

There is another thread on here if you want to know more, but basically using a buisness card sized peice of paper, and placing it behind the battery, thus putting alittle pressure on the screen and making it more responsive and easier to click.

its when you put a piece of paper, like a business card, on the back (or front) of your battery. it greatly improves sensitivity.

I'm trying it out right now. There seems to be a long delay for the hovering blue highlight catches up to me.

love the new settings.....everything is alot more responsive

Great, this helped alot. Does anyone know how to change on the home screen from 2 rows to one of icons? Cant figure it out.

I'd like an expert here to put into common terms what the technical terms mean and accomplish!

I love the settings, but with them, I can't hold my finger on an empty spot for it to edit. Anyone else experience this?

That is due to the hover setting. If you changed it to 1000 as suggested in this thread, you will have to hold your finger there for quite a while before you can edit something. I have mine at 400 and am thinking about trying it at 300 or 200.

here are my settings for my keyboard and it works perfecty

Increase the Tap Interval to 100.
Increase the Hover Period to 100.
Increase the Swipe Sensitivity to High (6).
Key Rate to Fast."

Helped a lot, seemed to be able to type faster, which is cool, and no more little spinning clock while I am trying to type! YAY!

Can someone explain what the tap interval and the hover period do?

I second the 100/100/6/fast settings.

main screen..... BB button...Options....enjoy!!

Crackberry.com has a video of the to be released OS 4.7.0.75
Looks great and much improved!
I hope recommending crackberry.com offends no one here.

on the main screen hit the options key then hit options :)

I have mine at 300 and it works great. I just have to hold a finger there for a second before it'll change to the box.

Quick question -- I don't see key rate, where is that?

EDIT: Found it -- its not in the same list as the Hover, tap, etc. (for anyone else thats dumb like me)

After being somewhat disappointed with the typing response coming off the "Q" I found this forum and the first thread has exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks for posting it ... and my settings are:
Tap - 500
Hover - 300
Swipe - 5
Key Rate - Fast.

This completely changed the typing for me and I'm very happy.

Thanks.

SaintlySins

new settings work well
coming from a trio i was disappointed with the KB in this but now much happier
more accurate than the original settings

I'd like to second the Tap Interval and Hover Period similar to what SaintlySins and a few others have mentioned.... from what I've read and experienced, here's a brief description (and my settings):

Tap Interval: Amount of time allowed between taps to register a double tap. For example, in the browser, you double click to zoom. If you have Tap Interval set to 100, it means you have to tap twice within a very short period of time (100 ms maybe?), whereas a setting of 500 is more forgiving. (My setting: 500, though I'm considering reducing this to 200 or so since I seem to inadvertently zoom fairly often)

Hover Period: amount of time required to hover over (i.e. keep your finger on the screen) before activating certain hover features. For example, when switching into cursor mode to reposition your cursor when editing text. Another example is the "quick" filter in your Messages list -- if you hover over a Sender (or a Subject) in your messages list, it will filter your messages to show only messages from that Sender (or in that particular message thread). With a Hover Period of 1000, these features are painfully slow. (My setting: 200)

Keep in mind this is my interpretation after lots of reading and playing with various settings and still may not be 100% accurate. Please correct me if I'm wrong ;)

Rob

Additional observation;
When typing in Landscape mode, (personal favorite), there's a noticeable gap between the two sides of the keyboard running right down the middle. If I reach across the middle line when typing (right to left/vice-versa), I'm bound to get a wrong key. After studying this a little more, I realize the phone's been programmed for you to "short-the-key" (my own definition) when typing as you're fingers touch the screen in a slightly different place than your eye shows you - because your fingers are rounded and contact isn't quite where you visualize it to be.
I hope I've explained this well enough. If you "landscape" type, you'll see what I mean if you try and speed-type across the middle of the keyboard from the opposite end. This could explain some of the continued complaints from those who hunt-and-peck -vs- those who thumb-type with both thumbs.

I'll post this on both Key-Board threads running.
Hope it helps.

HOLY CRAP. You're right. Unbelievable.

I just got my Storm today. Long time BB user (1st time poster, I think...) and I am just floored by this thing. Gotta say...read lots of the reviews before receiving it and I was getting worried. Now I see that it's really just people that don't bother figuring out what RIM was actually doing when it made the Storm do what it does. And it does it all very well, IMO.

It does work quite well doesn't it? I just think some people get so used to doing things a certain way they might have a bit of a harder time adjusting to something different. I struggled for a few hours initially. Once I embraced the fact that I was going to go with the flow things got better. I am not 100% yet with my Storm but I was never 100% with any of my other BB's.

Ok, so do higher numbers make typing easier for faster people, or do lower numbers>? ( I am simple minded) haha.

I like these settings better so far... I was hesitant to change too much w/o really knowing what they do... But this seems to speed up my typing... I'll have to see how it impacts other things like browsing and zooming...

Thanks also for the little gems in this thread like the # of display rows & sliding the keyboard away!

awesome works much better now. thanks!

Keyboard Settings
 

For all who don't recall, the default settings are: 400 / 100/ 3

I just tried these settings and there is definitely a change for the better. As an avid SMS fiend, I found the keyboard much more responsive with the new settings.

I am a BB newbie and an SMS addict. This tweak ROCKS!!

Very nice...Loving it....

Great tip! Thanks for posting this. (y)

Hover at 1000 makes editing a line impractical.

Improvement
 

Yes, there is much improvement now. I like my Storm, and find it is a learning curve. So I will keep mine.

Sliding keyboard
 

:? :?How do I make the keyboard slide away?:x

Hoover, highlight a key then swipe your finger downward to slide it closed.

I noticed this a couple days ago when I was at work. I thought I was going crazy at first until I had the same issues later that day browsing (while driving) So if nothing else I have definetly cut down on my phone time while driving which is a good thing.... I guess..

Say that again. You can't highlight a keyboard key and leave it highlighted. Do you mean use two hands? I have never been able to get the keyboard to disappear without using the menu but it is easy to get it to pop up when you don't want it.

Man, I had my settings set the opposite of that. Number wise. With these settings I can type BLAZINGLY faster. Thanks a lot.

All you have to do when the keyboard is up is swipe from the top of the keyboard down quickly. It'll go away. Don't click swipe. Just touch swipe.

Just like I said the first time....

Thanks, works like a charm..... I have upgraded to the new firmware. Have no issues and the Storm seems to be better or I am getting used to it.

Good settings but had to tweak a little.

It worked great for me! Thanks. I was wondering about those settings and which ones would make the keyboard work better.

I agree. The previous settings with this modification makes it all amazing. Thanks for the update guys.

Been lurking for a while.......this works so well I HAD to sign to say THANKS for these tips....



Now I know have finally found the replacement for my DESPISED Treo pos

Just tried this myself. I text a lot and I have deffinatley noticed a positive improvment.

Helps people with fat fingers too :p

I did this and every time I press options nothing happens. Any ideas?

EDIT: I just realized that in order for me to access the options menu I have to remove my battery everything. Anybody else with this problem?

Wirelessly posted (blackberry storm)

This was pretty useful information! I thought I could type fast with this new keyboard but with the new faster settings its much better

For the life of me I cannot CANNOT figure out how to have a default signature for my text messages. Can anyone help me with this? Also in my opinion the camera isn't that great. The colors aren't very bright and "actual" it's more of a gray/green. I tried to make some adjustments but they didn't help. Any suggestions?

Yes, its all over CrackBerry: do not reach across the KYBD while typing. I am using my left thumb for the left side and my right thumb for the right side, when using the landscape KYBD. Crackberry has a very extensive set of tips specially re-edited at

ULTIMATE Official tips/tricks ONLY - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

Some of these tips are priceless.

I have not taken the time to learn SureType. In fact, I think I hate it.

Instead of the paper trick, I took a small piece of an old plastic credit card. I cut it to the width of my battery, and about 3/4 inch tall. I placed it right on top of my battery and it seems to work great- better than the paper! Plus I like the idea of plastic instead of paper for hazard reasons.

I honestly can't decide between 100/100/6 and 500/1000/6 I really want to be able to use the "Search Sender" function just by hovering over the contact name in the message list.

What's the final verdict 500/1000/6 or 100/100/6?

These settings really made a huge difference for me. Thank you for sharing!

This is a great thread, thanks for posting it! I was concerned I had made a bad buying decision based on how fast I can type vs. how fast the Storm reacts. No longer, thanks to the 100/100/6/fast settings!

Anyone else having issues with pressing the "a" key and the "space" key in landscape mode? They seem to require more pressure than the other keys. Could be my fat thumbs...

work great thank you :)

Much happier now, was frustrated !!!

Keyboard/touchscreen
 

Much happier now, was frustrated !!!

I like the 100/100/6 better and with a card on the battery I have noticed typing much, much better!

Kris

MAN i thought i would have to get used to this but WOW what A difference THANKS!! More responsive and very similar characteristics as my previous iPHONE. Thanks again!!

I changed my hover to 300. Much, much better. Thank you for the tip! 1000 is rediculous.

Thanks for the tip!

For anyone that is still using the paper trick (or any of the variants that involve putting something under and/or over the battery, you really should consider removing all of that stuff and trying the loosen screws method that has been posted all over. Trust me, I was one of the biggest proponents of the paper trick until I tried this... it actually works better than the paper trick, IMHO, making the screen evenly clickable all over and very responsive. If anyone needs a link, let me know and I can look it up... you should be able to find it by searching for "torx" or "T6"... although, I think the screw is actually a T7, but most people are claiming it's a T6... I bought a T6 screwdriver and it felt a little loose when I was unscrewing the screws (though it DID work just fine).

Hope this helps.

Wierd....

Post that link you are talking about if you get a chance. It would be helpful for those interested...

thanks for this, it worked for me! Typing much faster now!

thanks

I have my Storm's Tap Interval set to 100, Hover Period set to 1000 and Swipe Sensitivity set to (High) 6. I found setting the Hover Period too low makes it select the key too fast.

works well thanks

You have more than a screw loose dude8-)

How to enable english multitap in this blackberry??

Wow, I had no idea how much this would help! I was getting used to the default settings so I was cautious to change them and mess up my flow, ya know? Anyways these settings are exponentially better! GREAT find!

hit the key with the bb logo on it in any app and select enable suretype from the menu


or go to options screen/keyboard protrait view keyboard and select suretype or multitype as the default.

in the words of the almighty kool-aid man "OOOOOOO YEAAAAAAAAAAA" works perfectly now (y)

Yes, what is it with this? I did it once, and it worked. Now.... when i hit options it literally does nothing.

What's up with that?!

thanks for this advice, had my bb already setup for these settings but good info for those that didn't know ;0) ..

?? care to elaborate?

Thanks for sharing. It works great.

I like the 100/100/6/fast setting best. It meets my personal needs.

Just changed the settings on my Storm. What a difference. Doubled my typing speed. Great tip! :)

Yea this settings is great.

The devil made me say it ;-)

Wow
 

Wow thank you so much
it is a big difrent (y)(y)(y)