I've been using a Blackberry for about 9 months now and am in general very happy with it. One huge frustration, however, is how it handles the entry of accented characters. Having to use one hand to hold the key and the other to spin the ball to select the character (often with one hand in the way of another) is really cludgy.
It seems like decades ago, but for some time, I was an avid Treo user (in the days of the 600 and 650). There was an app for them (KeyCaps600) which allowed one to access the alt-characters and accented characters through double tapping and through holding the key down, whereupon it would cycle from lowercase -> uppercase -> accented characters one by one. This was so much more efficient and allowed one-handed typing.
Living in Europe and having to write in multiple languages means that the current method of selecting accented characters is really frustrating. I've tried the AutoText replacement tips and found some relief that way, but I'd love to find a properly thought-out entry system which handles accented characters, hence my question here:
Does anyone know of an app to help me out?
Last edited by milylasouris; 12-07-09 at 09:22 AM.
Yes, that's what I'm using, and a few AutoTexts, but it's terribly cludgy. It's clearly been designed by someone who never writes in anything but English!
@milylasouris: Great to know I am not the only one with this problem. I too am desperately looking for a true solution to allow typing with one hand, but it seems there is little "care" for us (Europeans?), as the greatest amount of BlackBerry customers are (statistically) found in the U.S. and Canadian markets.
Being an aspiring Java developer though, I am willing to contribute time to research and start development of software to make special character input more accessible to those who need it. Do you have any suggestions on how the current system could be improved?
