Apps that works great with a real keyboard and in landscape

[EskeRahn 5,460]

3 minutes ago, robert.prior1985 said:

Well I am due to be placed in Next weeks shipment and will let you know how all is when I get my phone and which apps I find helpful/good. It will probably be crossword games and Excel spreadsheets! Lol! 

Thank you for all the help anyways. 🙂

You are welcome. And yes, this does not have to be productivity apps. But if you found say a sudoku app that worked particularly well with a keyboard and/or in landscape over the tons of others, it would be a good candidate  😁

[Hook 3,020]

On 12/7/2019 at 2:57 AM, cmar said:

Reply from Deja office:

 

Chris,

Thank you for contacting CompanionLink support.

It looks like that device is running Android Pie, so there shouldn't be any compatibility issue. If anything you may just need to enable Tablet mode in DejaOffice Settings > General settings.

Thank You,

Conley H.

DejaOffice Support
www.dejaoffice.com

Ticket Details

 

I can assure you there are no problems with Deja Office.  No tablet mode needed.  It's like it was made for the Pro 1. 😀

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Hook said:

I can assure you there are no problems with Deja Office.  No tablet mode needed.  It's like it was made for the Pro 1. 😀

Thanks for the confirmation! I appreciate

[EskeRahn 5,460]

2 hours ago, Hook said:

I can assure you there are no problems with Deja Office.  No tablet mode needed.  It's like it was made for the Pro 1. 😀

Could you elaborate a bit on why it is more suited for the Pro1 than office packages in general?

[Hook 3,020]

8 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

Could you elaborate a bit on why it is more suited for the Pro1 than office packages in general?

DejaOffice is a PIM (Calendar/Contacts/Memos/Tasks), not an office app.  I use Softmaker Office as an Office App.

As a PIM, Deja Office doesn't require syncing to Google and can sync wirelessly with a desktop component on your computer, like Pimlical (which I have also used). 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

42 minutes ago, Hook said:

DejaOffice is a PIM (Calendar/Contacts/Memos/Tasks), not an office app.  I use Softmaker Office as an Office App.

As a PIM, Deja Office doesn't require syncing to Google and can sync wirelessly with a desktop component on your computer, like Pimlical (which I have also used). 

I see, but I still would like to know what make it better on Pro1 than any competitors. I mean there a millions of apps out there that will run on the Pro1, so meaningless to start listing those. The interesting would be those that can benefit from Pro1's features more that the rest. Most apps can use the keyboard for entering text, but does not otherwise interact other than rudimentary with the keyboard. e.g. Googles own Settings, where navigation is mostly possible , but certainly not optimised in any way for keyboard usage. Some apps in theory works in Landscape, but does so poorly, just stretching and expect a lot of scroll. So I would like  those that uses the wide space of landscape constructively.

(As I tried to explain in the smallprint in the OP)

[Hook 3,020]

10 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

I see, but I still would like to know what make it better on Pro1 than any competitors. I mean there a millions of apps out there that will run on the Pro1, so meaningless to start listing those. The interesting would be those that can benefit from Pro1's features more that the rest. Most apps can use the keyboard for entering text, but does not otherwise interact other than rudimentary with the keyboard. e.g. Googles own Settings, where navigation is mostly possible , but certainly not optimised in any way for keyboard usage. Some apps in theory works in Landscape, but does so poorly, just stretching and expect a lot of scroll. So I would like  those that uses the wide space of landscape constructively.

(As I tried to explain in the smallprint in the OP)

Hey, I'm trying to dash off answers here while fiddling with my new phone. 😉

I was specifically addressing the question asked rather than going back to the first post, which I should have.  There is nothing special about Deja Office on a slider phone rather than some other except that it behaves well, fits content to the landscape screen nicely and allows you to use a hardware keyboard for entry.  The latter is exceptionally useful in a PIM app and aces any other consideration. I think most well programmed Android apps will meet these requirements. The only trouble I have ever had with Android apps in  horizontal mode is the on-screen keyboard. So, no, I don't think I can make a case that DejaOffice is better on a Pro 1 screen than a One Plus 7T screen, until you consider the hardware keyboard-- but that's going to almost always be true with any app.

I think it's very unlikely that any app will take advantage of keyboard features other than using the keyboard to type until and unless FxTec manages to make keyboard phones popular. I'd love to see an app that makes use of the arrow keys, but that sort of thing won't happen unless there's a good market out there.

 

 

 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

34 minutes ago, Hook said:

I'd love to see an app that makes use of the arrow keys, but that sort of thing won't happen unless there's a good market out there.

...Or the app got a history from when real keyboards were common, or one of the developers happens to be a keyboard fan....

But in general you are right, unfortunately most apps today is clearly designed for portrait and touch only. The more serious developers also aiming for tablets offer some landscape support, but often not good on say 16:9 or here 18:9. Navigation handling arrow keys and tab beyond the rudiments in Android it self is not common - that was my whole idea of creating this thread, So that less popular software that might work fantastic on a Pro1, could be known to other Pro1 owners.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Could you elaborate a bit on why it is more suited for the Pro1 than office packages in general?

I use deja office for syncing the tasks from my outlook on my desktop to my mobile phone.

Outlook app on android does not offer this possibility as far as I can see

No hidden promotion of Deja office here.

For me this is the key app, which needs to be working on the phone. It is not only about writing SMS, whatsapp or text.

The phone would not have the same value for me without it, and I would hesitate about buying it. So I wanted to be sure it is working => This is why it is worth mentioning.

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by Guest

[EskeRahn 5,460]

6 hours ago, cmar said:

I use deja office for syncing the tasks from my outlook on my desktop to my mobile phone.

Outlook app on android does not offer this possibility as far as I can see

No hidden promotion of Deja office here.

For me this is the key app, which needs to be working on the phone. It is not only about writing SMS, whatsapp or text.

The phone would not have the same value for me without it, and I would hesitate about buying it. So I wanted to be sure it is working => This is why it is worth mentioning.

 

I see.

I think you will have a hard time finding apps on the Android Market that do NOT work on the Pro1. Except apps bound by some special licensing or with special hardware requirements.

On the other hand many apps are poorly designed, and will only work as they would on any plain slab in portrait only, and the keyboard might only be used for any text-input.
I would not be surprised if say some game had their own fancy custom designed touch-keyboard, and completely ignored the real one....

[3zet 100]

Someone tried X-Plore on Pro1?

[EskeRahn 5,460]

35 minutes ago, 3zet said:

Someone tried X-Plore on Pro1?

It supports landscape, and keyboard navigation just fine, entering/closing folders with Enter and swapping sides with Tab, BS (not Del) gives a Delete dialogue. There might be other keyboard integration too.

Some of the text is EXTREMELY small though. The whole word "Donate" in the centre is just 3mm wide!! So not an app for the weak sighted...

[Craig 1,435]

Lotta simple games on Play store won't go landscape.   I have found one built-in solution if you want to force landscape on such apps... put them splitscreen.  Obviously not ideal as it makes them small, but does work...

Also, in regular settings, setting font small and display small and playing with dpi, you can get a lot more on the screen than default.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Craig

[Hook 3,020]

I've switched from the Pro 1s native launcher (called Quickstep) to Nova launcher, which I have used for years and enjoy it's greater feature set. For now I'm not going to use the assigning keys to apps as I use a lot of input ready apps that end up with letters being printed from the held down key.  If they fix that later, I will look at that feature again.  Also, Quickstep organizes the homescreens into two columns which prevents you from placing widgets in the center (or at least it did me-- maybe user error).

What I wanted to show is that Nova behaves very well jumping from Portrait to Landscape with these two screen shots.  This isn't a final setup, just something I threw together quickly showing how the same layout with no changes looks in Portrait and Landscape.  And it responds to the slider coming out by snapping instantly into landscape.  I;m sure I may run into some adjustments if I have a larger widget set, but from my tests last summer, I think those can be worked out pretty easily too.  Nova is just very flexible with a lot of settings.

 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

55 minutes ago, Hook said:

I've switched from the Pro 1s native launcher (called Quickstep) to Nova launcher, which I have used for years and enjoy it's greater feature set. For now I'm not going to use the assigning keys to apps as I use a lot of input ready apps that end up with letters being printed from the held down key.  If they fix that later, I will look at that feature again.  Also, Quickstep organizes the homescreens into two columns which prevents you from placing widgets in the center (or at least it did me-- maybe user error).

What I wanted to show is that Nova behaves very well jumping from Portrait to Landscape with these two screen shots.  This isn't a final setup, just something I threw together quickly showing how the same layout with no changes looks in Portrait and Landscape.  And it responds to the slider coming out by snapping instantly into landscape.  I;m sure I may run into some adjustments if I have a larger widget set, but from my tests last summer, I think those can be worked out pretty easily too.  Nova is just very flexible with a lot of settings.

We have had the different launcher thing in other threads e.g. this. I'm surprised you find it working well. I think it (like more or less ALL the dozens of launcher I tried) really stinks, by stretching and squeezing 2:1 to 1:2, messing up widgets. There are a few launchers that got individual grid-settings for landscape and portrait. This can double the setup, but at the least is better.

Personally I see it as a stroke of genius in this simple build in Launcher to simply divide the grid in two roughly square halfs that is either placed next to each other or above each other with only a slight squeeze/stretch. Practically any elongated device being 16:9 or wider could benefit from that idea.

I hope some will port that idea to a more advanced launcher, be it Nova or an open source one.

(The keyboard navigation support in Nova are not stellar either)

[david 929]

16 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

We have had the different launcher thing in other threads e.g. this. I'm surprised you find it working well. I think it (like more or less ALL the dozens of launcher I tried) really stinks, by stretching and squeezing 2:1 to 1:2, messing up widgets. There are a few launchers that got individual grid-settings for landscape and portrait. This can double the setup, but at the least is better.

I've read about the stretching/squeezing before, but in this example above, I'm not seeing any skewing.  Is it just that it is resizing the icons or is it that it is resizing them in a non-proportional way in one direction and I'm not seeing it on my monitor?

[EskeRahn 5,460]

8 minutes ago, david said:

I've read about the stretching/squeezing before, but in this example above, I'm not seeing any skewing.  Is it just that it is resizing the icons or is it that it is resizing them in a non-proportional way in one direction and I'm not seeing it on my monitor?

Ah well it is the grid that is squeezed/stretched. And especially some widgets can not fit properly in this changed grid, without being completely maimed. In the above example we 'just' have a huge waste of space in either one or the other direction, as the launcher assume the same logical grid (here 7x7). They might just as well only use half the screen and leave the other half black....

[david 929]

1 minute ago, EskeRahn said:

Ah well it is the grid that is squeezed/stretched. And especially some widgets can not fit properly in this changed grid, without being completely maimed. In the above example we 'just' have a huge waste of space in either one or the other direction, as the launcher assume the same logical grid (here 7x7). They might just as well only use half the screen and leave the other half black....

I see.  I don't use widgets, so I'm probably immune to that on my Relay 4G.  The Cyanogenmod launcher (Trebuchet) acts the same way as Nova, where it creates more space between icons in landscape too, so that's just what I'm used to.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

14 minutes ago, david said:

I see.  I don't use widgets, so I'm probably immune to that on my Relay 4G.  The Cyanogenmod launcher (Trebuchet) acts the same way as Nova, where it creates more space between icons in landscape too, so that's just what I'm used to.

Here an example with a randomly picket 1x1 widget from 3C on a freshly installed nova, just added the widget.

I wonder what Google pays to have all their junk as the default icons BTW?

Some launchers on install inherits from current launcher - much more elegant than having to delete all and start over.

[Craig 1,435]

Supertux!  It does require remapping the keys (in the game options menu) to use keys that by default are et up to allow multiple keypresses.  Note that supertux calls the Sym key 'left super' and both slant arrows 'right super' and both control keys 'left control'.    So in my case, I'm using the right control to jump and the right slant arrow to shoot (and alt/sym on the left to move).  On screen controls lake the peek function and I rarely use it, but put that on the arrows works good.

You can turn off on the on-screen touchscreen controls overlay thing from the sdl settings at the beginning.

Screenshots not possible cuz of graphics engine they use i guesss....  but here's a photo of my keyboard setup that works well for me.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.lethargik.supertux2

 

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by Craig

[Hook 3,020]

7 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

We have had the different launcher thing in other threads e.g. this. I'm surprised you find it working well. I think it (like more or less ALL the dozens of launcher I tried) really stinks, by stretching and squeezing 2:1 to 1:2, messing up widgets. There are a few launchers that got individual grid-settings for landscape and portrait. This can double the setup, but at the least is better.

Personally I see it as a stroke of genius in this simple build in Launcher to simply divide the grid in two roughly square halfs that is either placed next to each other or above each other with only a slight squeeze/stretch. Practically any elongated device being 16:9 or wider could benefit from that idea.

I hope some will port that idea to a more advanced launcher, be it Nova or an open source one.

(The keyboard navigation support in Nova are not stellar either)

Aw, cmon, let us know how you really feel. 😄  I think a better feature for all launchers would be separate grid controls for portrait and landscape.  I admit that I need to play more with widgets where I may run into problems that will send me back to Quickstep.  I just don't like not being able to free place my widgets.

7 hours ago, david said:

I've read about the stretching/squeezing before, but in this example above, I'm not seeing any skewing.  Is it just that it is resizing the icons or is it that it is resizing them in a non-proportional way in one direction and I'm not seeing it on my monitor?

You can see it in my screenshots by looking at what happens to the clock widget (but, hey, it's in the middle of the screen 😂) and the changes in the spacing between icons.  But I also like that I can control the size of icons and get a 7 icon launcher bar.

We'll see if I stick with Nova or come running back.  I'm in the early stages.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

7 hours ago, Hook said:

Aw, cmon, let us know how you really feel. 😄  I think a better feature for all launchers would be separate grid controls for portrait and landscape.  I admit that I need to play more with widgets where I may run into problems that will send me back to Quickstep.  I just don't like not being able to free place my widgets.

You can see it in my screenshots by looking at what happens to the clock widget (but, hey, it's in the middle of the screen 😂) and the changes in the spacing between icons.  But I also like that I can control the size of icons and get a 7 icon launcher bar.

We'll see if I stick with Nova or come running back.  I'm in the early stages.

Lets hope that Nova finds a clever way to offer different grids in the two directions. But it is hard to imagine a generic system that can allow people to enter the grids as they place without people needing to manually create the shortcuts in both directions.

Obviously Nova got a lot of good stuff,

I was picking on Launchers in general with Nova as an example, not picking at them in particular.

I guess I'm just frustrated after trying dozens of launchers that all stinks. I guess FxTec found themselves 'forced' to make their own, in lack of any existing that could do the task.

[Craig 1,435]

I've been using Nova a couple days, and seems to be fairly good with keyboard and landscape, except two things I've noticed.  Some settings menus don't fit on the screen but nova doesn't offer a way to scroll down.  For example, I was trying to change my app drawer background color.... finally figured it out when I switched to portrait (and fyi - the black in their pallete isn't true black, gotta turn everything down).     Also, if you use wm in adb shell to add overscan, it affects the text under launcher icons (even if they're not in the overscan area). 

 

[Hook 3,020]

47 minutes ago, Craig said:

I've been using Nova a couple days, and seems to be fairly good with keyboard and landscape, except two things I've noticed.  Some settings menus don't fit on the screen but nova doesn't offer a way to scroll down.  For example, I was trying to change my app drawer background color.... finally figured it out when I switched to portrait (and fyi - the black in their pallete isn't true black, gotta turn everything down).     Also, if you use wm in adb shell to add overscan, it affects the text under launcher icons (even if they're not in the overscan area). 

 

I have no trouble (in landscape) going to background color in the app drawer settings and scrolling down to see the whole color palatte and even opening the advanced item at the bottom. I just had to scroll with my finger.  Or did I misunderstand what you had problems with scrolling.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Hook

[Craig 1,435]

5 minutes ago, Hook said:

I have no trouble (in landscape) going to background color in the app drawer settings and scrolling down to see the whole color palatte and even opening the advanced item at the bottom. I just had to scroll with my finger.  Or did I misunderstand what you had problems with scrolling.

 

 

From there... I cant scroll down.  Not with finger, not keyboard arrows, no scrollbar present; so have to go into portrait.  When I select background color It just puts that bar with the check mark on the bottom, but I cannot go further in landscape.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Craig