[neefer]

So this long-press, short-press thing works great on the KeyOne. (Short-press H for Hub is awesome!)

BUT... here is the shortcoming: after two items per letter, you need to start getting creative. But once you start "getting creative" due to a letter already having two assignments, we're talking about basically memorizing all the shortcuts, which makes no sense.

Was it "W" for "Web Browser" or "B" for "Browser"?

Was it "A" for "Address Book" or "C" for Contacts?

Etc.

Here's what I'd like to see instead:

Current long-press/short-press behavior is deemed "Standard Mode", while two toggle options let you switch either or both (long/short press) into "Enhanced Mode".

...

Enhanced Mode Long-Press:

Using a long-press on a letter key would show all apps that start with that letter (listed alphabetically) -- similar to how "folder" contents are shown on the home screens.

So if I long-press "F", it opens up a "virtual folder" showing (for example, in my case) all the "F" apps:

• "Facebook"
• "FedEx"
• "File Manager"
• "Find My Device"
• "Fitbit"

...

Enhanced Mode Short-Press:

Here you get to assign multiple apps to the letter -- and rearrange their order-of-appearance.

If you only assign one app, it launches it immediately just like it does now -- so even if "Enhanced Mode" is enabled, having only one app assigned to the letter would de-facto be "Standard Mode" for that one letter. (Thus I could still have "H" for "Hub".)

BUT -- if you assign more than one app to the letter (rearrangeable in whatever order you desire), it pops up a virtual folder (just like for long-press), but this virtual folder is only the apps you assigned to that key (regardless of what letter the app name starts with).

So if I long-press "C", it opens up a virtual folder showing (for example, in my case) the apps I use frequently and that I mentally associate with the letter "C" (and in the order specified during shortcut assignment):

• "Contacts"
• "Compose Email"
• "Compose Text Message"
• "Calendar" (the Blackberry version)
• "Business Calendar"
• "Add Event"
• "Simple Calculator"
• "Equate" (a calculator app)
• "Alarmy" (a different clock app)

...

Additional usability / efficiency feature: When the magic shortcut-key "virtual folder" is popped up, short-pressing the key again would close the folder. (Since there is no "escape" key, and since it's super-annoying to have to tap on the home screen to collapse a folder.)

Super-duper-added-bonus-feature: within the key-assignment interface, along with the ability to rearrange the apps assigned to each key, could be the ability to specify one or more "blanks" within the list -- these would be transparent null-app icons and provide full control of each virtual folder's layout!

Award-winning-bonus-feature: the "all apps" list has a list view option to provide an overview of all apps and their assigned shortcut keys (if any), so you can quickly review all your apps and make sure their shortcut key(s) are assigned appropriately where desired. (Now that I think about it, this kind of interface could be way more efficient than the current method of assigning shortcut keys, even without "enhanced mode", because technically the workflow is "this app should have a shortcut" and not "this shortcut should have an app".)

...

I think that having this kind of an "Enhanced Mode" shortcut key functionality on the KeyOne would bump the productivity up to 11, and launch "minimalism" through the roof!

Imagine having just the single home screen, with next to nothing on it...

...while at the same time rarely-to-never ever having to go into the app/shortcut/widget menu.

EVERYthing would literally be accessible at the touch of a button. One key press + 1 icon click and you're instantly into wherever you want to be! #DreamDroidBerry

(THEN the whole multiple-home-screen thing could be put to good use for productivity widgets, without all the clutter of app icons.)

...

I do need to confess up-front, that should such a feature come into existence on the KeyOne -- I'd totally take advantage of the opportunity to condescendingly scoff at all other Andriod users: "Navigating multiple home screens? Searching for where you put an app icon? Loser. That's sooooooo 2016. *sarcastic-eyeroll-at-them*" ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

[fanisk]

Very interesting suggestions !
The true is that me too I can't profit of all available shortcuts because it's impossible to memorize all !

[anon(4297019)]

A bit much...

[o4liberty]

That's a lot of short cuts!

[supertom]

Well, of course it's a lot to memorize, but my simple solution is to assign a new shortcut key every week or so, so I can get used to it.

When I first got my KEYone, I just had maybe 3-4 shortcuts assigned. Since then It has filled out nicely and am using more like 10-12 shortcuts now. The folder idea is not bad, but the purpose of the shortcut keys is convenience, speed, efficiency. If I press the key just to select an icon, how is that different than swiping on the homescreen and selecting an icon?

[supertom]

but, I DO like the folder idea though! Yes, I would like to try it out to see if it's something I would use regularly.

[undefinederror]

I like this idea!
Additionally, I like how it would be an option that people could enable or disable. That way, if they don't like it, they can revert back to how the phone currently functions.

[anon(9188202)]

Like it!

[Matthew Davis7]

impressed you put so much thought into it!

[roba5263]

Sort of workaround for the folder idea: enable device search by typing instead of shortpress shortcuts. Press any letter and you will get any app that starts with thar letter.

[Aju]

Enhanced mode idea is good!

Posted via CB10

[Scovik]

So this long-press, short-press thing works great on the KeyOne. (Short-press H for Hub is awesome!)

BUT... here is the shortcoming: after two items per letter, you need to start getting creative. But once you start "getting creative" due to a letter already having two assignments, we're talking about basically memorizing all the shortcuts, which makes no sense.

Was it "W" for "Web Browser" or "B" for "Browser"?

Was it "A" for "Address Book" or "C" for Contacts?

Etc.

Here's what I'd like to see instead:

Current long-press/short-press behavior is deemed "Standard Mode", while two toggle options let you switch either or both (long/short press) into "Enhanced Mode".

...

Enhanced Mode Long-Press:

Using a long-press on a letter key would show all apps that start with that letter (listed alphabetically) -- similar to how "folder" contents are shown on the home screens.

So if I long-press "F", it opens up a "virtual folder" showing (for example, in my case) all the "F" apps:

• "Facebook"
• "FedEx"
• "File Manager"
• "Find My Device"
• "Fitbit"

...

Enhanced Mode Short-Press:

Here you get to assign multiple apps to the letter -- and rearrange their order-of-appearance.

If you only assign one app, it launches it immediately just like it does now -- so even if "Enhanced Mode" is enabled, having only one app assigned to the letter would de-facto be "Standard Mode" for that one letter. (Thus I could still have "H" for "Hub".)

BUT -- if you assign more than one app to the letter (rearrangeable in whatever order you desire), it pops up a virtual folder (just like for long-press), but this virtual folder is only the apps you assigned to that key (regardless of what letter the app name starts with).

So if I long-press "C", it opens up a virtual folder showing (for example, in my case) the apps I use frequently and that I mentally associate with the letter "C" (and in the order specified during shortcut assignment):

• "Contacts"
• "Compose Email"
• "Compose Text Message"
• "Calendar" (the Blackberry version)
• "Business Calendar"
• "Add Event"
• "Simple Calculator"
• "Equate" (a calculator app)
• "Alarmy" (a different clock app)

...

Additional usability / efficiency feature: When the magic shortcut-key "virtual folder" is popped up, short-pressing the key again would close the folder. (Since there is no "escape" key, and since it's super-annoying to have to tap on the home screen to collapse a folder.)

Super-duper-added-bonus-feature: within the key-assignment interface, along with the ability to rearrange the apps assigned to each key, could be the ability to specify one or more "blanks" within the list -- these would be transparent null-app icons and provide full control of each virtual folder's layout!

...

I think that having this kind of an "Enhanced Mode" shortcut key functionality on the KeyOne would bump the productivity up to 11, and launch "minimalism" through the roof!

Imagine having just the single home screen, with next to nothing on it...

...while at the same time rarely-to-never ever having to go into the app/shortcut/widget menu.

EVERYthing would literally be accessible at the touch of a button. One key press + 1 icon click and you're instantly into wherever you want to be! #DreamDroidBerry

(THEN the whole multiple-home-screen thing could be put to good use for productivity widgets, without all the clutter of app icons.)

...

I do need to confess up-front, that should such a feature come into existence on the KeyOne -- I'd totally take advantage of the opportunity to condescendingly scoff at all other Andriod users: "Navigating multiple home screens? Searching for where you put an app icon? Loser. That's sooooooo 2016. *sarcastic-eyeroll-at-them*" ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

You know what the main problem is with this 52 shortcuts? No one ever said that you have to use all of them, if you use 10-20 apps constantly then you can map them out to have easy access, no one ever said (because it's stupid and ********) to map all apps from your phone to shortcuts, I have better things to do with my long term memory and short one for that matter, than remembering if x app is on x key or y key and set to a short press or long press.
I have setup 3 contacts for long press so I can call then as soon as I unlock the phone and 19 apps set to short press. I use almost all 19 apps shortcuts, but seeing as when you get an email and tap on it you are redirected directly to gmail/hub, or when you get a notification from another app and want to see it you are redirected to the app directly, you don't always need to open the app from the shortcut. Either way it's overkill to map more than 20 apps, even 20 apps is overkill (but I like to have wifi turned on/off from a key, enter settings from a key or turn on the flashlight from a key ).
I still have a folder of apps that I use from time to time and don't want to map them to shortcuts so not to stress to much MY memory buffer

[anon(8679041)]

So this long-press, short-press thing works great on the KeyOne. (Short-press H for Hub is awesome!)

BUT... here is the shortcoming: after two items per letter, you need to start getting creative. But once you start "getting creative" due to a letter already having two assignments, we're talking about basically memorizing all the shortcuts, which makes no sense.

Was it "W" for "Web Browser" or "B" for "Browser"?

Was it "A" for "Address Book" or "C" for Contacts?

Agree!

[hjc73734]

Since you got all your shortcuts on your PKB your home screen must be very minimalistic.

Make some artistic wallpaper with your shortcuts mapped out. LOL.

Like a cheat sheet!

[neefer]

Sort of workaround for the folder idea: enable device search by typing instead of shortpress shortcuts. Press any letter and you will get any app that starts with thar letter.

Yes, this works great when the app name starts with the letter. But without scrolling up, do you remember what letter my alternate calculator program starts with? (I don't. I had to scroll up!) Hint: "c" for calculator doesn't bring it up. I have to type "cal" into device search before the search function has enough info to be able to move "Simple Calculator" up onto the first screen of search results.

That's not optimally efficient.

Optimally efficient would be pressing "c" , getting a known grid of predefined (by me) "matches" and knowing that whatEVER calculator app I've settled on will be in the bottom left of that grid -- because I deemed "bottom left of the grid" as the proper home for my calculator. :-)

[anon(2313227)]

So take something you can't already remember and make it more complicated.
The point of these is to help you do stuff you use REGULARLY. if you program the top 15 for example, you would not have issues remembering them.

Perhaps start out with 5 thing you do lots. Do it till it is second nature and slowly add 2-3 things you think you do regularly too.

[neefer]

You know what the main problem is with this 52 shortcuts? No one ever said that you have to use all of them [...] I have better things to do with my long term memory and short one for that matter, than remembering if x app is on x key or y key and set to a short press or long press.

My point exactly. More specifically, I have better things to do to remember that my preferred calculator app is, at present, named "Simple Calculator".

Multiply that "preferred alternative app -- with a name that doesn't start with a logical first letter" problem by all the apps we need to fully customize our productivity experience under android, and it's a mess.

Scrolling through multiple home screens of icons, or through an alphabetical list of apps is not efficient. If the BB "launcher" or whatever the heck it is called let you put apps into folders within the app list, instead of only on the home screens, usability and efficiency could be improved. But I'm sure not going to take the time and effort to drag them all onto a home screen so I can put them into organized folders over there.

For a brand that is supposedly based on, among other things, productivity and efficiency -- switching to android currently robs users of said productivity and efficiency. Searching for an app icon in a sea of app icons is not efficient.

Being able to surgically carve out where an app resides in a user's mental workflow is efficient. Thus "enhanced mode" for shortcut keys.

[VeryBumpy]

Sort of workaround for the folder idea: enable device search by typing instead of short press shortcuts. Press any letter and you will get any app that starts with that letter.

I see this as much easier and better also.

[gallopiton]

even when you mention an interesting idea, I think you are starting at the wrong point, where you are assuming that you need to assign all the 52 letters or you need to assign 52 actions/apps... what I do is to use the long-press shortcuts to the ones that I really use... then, if you need more than that, assign only the short-press shortcut to that extra app with an easier to remember approach, as h for hub... the key is, to me, to filter the top 26 actions/apps that you really use the most and set them up as long press... I have z for calling my wife since z is easy to press, v for turning off Bluetooth and disconnect it from my smartwatch (easy to remember since it looks like an arrow) etc... then after those 26 most used, I have c for calculator as short-press, I use it but not that often, and I have only like 3 or 4 apps as short-press shortcuts... just my approach

[neefer]

So take something you can't already remember and make it more complicated.
The point of these is to help you do stuff you use REGULARLY. if you program the top 15 for example, you would not have issues remembering them.

Perhaps start out with 5 thing you do lots. Do it till it is second nature and slowly add 2-3 things you think you do regularly too.

I'm talking about more than just "the things you do regularly", though.

For example, I periodically have the need to use a metronome. I just had to read through my entire list of installed apps -- literally reading every single app name -- top to bottom, and then bottom to top until I finally found that the app I chose is named "Simple Metronome". That inefficiency annoys me.

I don't use this particular app enough to warrant "wasting" a shortcut key on it, nor do I use it enough to warrant wasting home screen space on it.

"m" for "metronome" = *boom* *done* -- multiplied times all apps = zero time wasted = increased productivity and efficiency. :-)

[neefer]

Well, of course it's a lot to memorize, but my simple solution is to assign a new shortcut key every week or so, so I can get used to it.

While that might work for the casual user, it's technically "delayed productivity", in that there's a "lead time" to get up and running with memorizing everything.

I still may just give in and take the time to drag every *bleepity bleep* app out of the "master list" and onto the home screen so that I can categorize them into folders such as "System Utilities", "Files & Docs", "Productivity Tools", etc., like I could on BB OS7 and on BB10.

It's just annoying as all get-out that this ability doesn't exist already within the "master list".

(And it's additionally annoying that if I disable a "built-in / non-deleteable" app but then later decide to re-enable it, that it will only re-appear in the master list, and will not appear in whatever home screen folder it was previously assigned to.)

...the purpose of the shortcut keys is convenience, speed, efficiency. If I press the key just to select an icon, how is that different than swiping on the homescreen and selecting an icon

Because using the home screen or the "master app list" requires you to find your target within a sea of icons -- which requires remembering the exact name of the app and/or remembering what the app icon looks like. (Very high signal-to-noise ratio.)

With my proposed "enhanced mode", pressing a shortcut key displays an extremely surgically-targeted subset of apps customized to the user's individual mental workflow regarding what apps they associate with that letter key. (Extremely low signal-to-noise ratio.)

[neefer]

The point of these is to help you do stuff you use REGULARLY.

That may be the current "point of these", but that "point" stops short of what it could become: an extremely efficient productivity tool.

Why stop at "help you do stuff you use REGULARLY" when you can enhance it to "help you do EVERYTHING"?

I'm being forward thinking. Imagine a world where you thought of an app, and within a single key press on the PKB you could find it without having to remember the app's name or what it's icon looked like, and without having to look at a sea of icons to try and find it.

This kind of functionality doesn't need to be limited to PKB phones either. There could be "an app for that" for non-PKB phones ("BB Virtual Shortcuts"). Imagine a non-PKB home screen with an extremely limited number of icons targeted to just the things used hourly/daily, plus this "virtual shortcut" app -- with no "secondary home screens". Launch this magic app, it pops up the virtual keyboard, you press your letter key, and you get your customized list of apps that you assigned as being mentally associated with that letter. Boom. Done.

I'm talking about a fundamental shift in workflow. I jokingly said at the bottom of my original post, "Navigating multiple home screens? Searching for where you put an app icon? Loser. That's sooooooo 2016." but I'm actually serious.

How many people-hours are wasted world-wide per year searching through a sea of icons multiple times per day/hour trying to find the app you want to launch? I literally watched my co-worker scroll through three home screens and then backwards one home screen just so she could find the Google Play Store icon yesterday.

Watching her do that was like nails on a chalkboard to me! There has to be a better way than the current sea-of-icons interface that we've all currently settled for. ("We can rebuild it. We have the technology.")

[Smokeaire]

Since I use long press shortcut key for apps and specific contacts I would like the option to disable short press to allow to just start typing to do a search like on the Passport. I used that feature all the time.

[neefer]

I would like the option to disable short press to allow to just start typing to do a search like on the Passport. I used that feature all the time.

I seem to remember that actually being the default behavior on my KeyOne and I had to specifically enable short-press shortcut keys. But the Keyboard Shortcuts interface doesn't show any way to turn that back off.

However, after digging through the manual, I found out how to do it.

On the home screen, press and hold any blank space, and it will activate a completely different set of configuration options than what you get using the gear icon from the notifications pulldown.

Once this new configuration options displays, there will be 4 icons across the bottom -- the last one being a gear icon for settings. Select that.

From there, select "Typing action", and change it from "use a short-press keyboard shortcut" to "start a search", and that should take care of it for you.

[Smokeaire]

I seem to remember that actually being the default behavior on my KeyOne and I had to specifically enable short-press shortcut keys. But the Keyboard Shortcuts interface doesn't show any way to turn that back off.

However, after digging through the manual, I found out how to do it.

On the home screen, press and hold any blank space, and it will activate a completely different set of configuration options than what you get using the gear icon from the notifications pulldown.

Once this new configuration options displays, there will be 4 icons across the bottom -- the last one being a gear icon for settings. Select that.

From there, select "Typing action", and change it from "use a short-press keyboard shortcut" to "start a search", and that should take care of it for you.

I forgot about that one as well. Thanks for the suggested.
Unfortunately the search is internal phone only, it doesn't automatically fire up Google Search. The Passport would default to Google or the other one ( name slips my mind). I guess I just need to always have the search bar on my home page.