[Steelsheen]

This is the only problem I see why a trackpad is needed:

http://i.imgur.com/Y1Jcnk0h.jpg
(sorry for the poorly drawn hand)

As for the text selection, I'm sure that will improve as the precision of the keyboard increases in a second gen. Passport's KB is merely a first generation.

Another alternative is an optical trackpoint, like on the Lenovo ThinkPad keyboards. Have a tiny optical-enabled point in between GHVB, and do all the navigation there when slide is open. Closed it operates like every other touchscreen phone.

initially i wasnt much fussed if the Slider kb was touch capacitive or not, i just didnt want them to have to add anything that would compromise the longevity of a pull out kb.

but given your sketch, i can see why its quite important, specially the kb and the screen are no longer on the same "level", so yeah touch capacitive kb isnt just a nice triviality, its now a necessity for the Slider.

i'd stop short of endorsing a trackpoint thought. those things are troublesome little buggers on a laptop, Lenovo or otherwise.

[enik]

The passport keyboard doesn't compare to a trackpad..
It works almost identically to it being an extension of the screen. Other than using gloves, I find no reason to scroll using the keyboard. Text selection is nowhere near as accurate as using a trackpad. It's far faster to get the cursor into the correct position by touching the screen vs using the touch keyboard.. trackpad (if don't right) is faster than both. Meaning shortcuts like shift scroll to select text, alt click to copy, shift click to paste etc

I think the keyboard should remain touch sensitive, but text selection should be left up to the trackpad. The keyboard should be used for gestures, ie swipe to delete a word..
Currently, with the touchkeyboard handling both text selection and keyboard gestures, they interfere with each other. For example, if you place the cursor behind a word you'd like to delete then swipe the keyboard, it won't delete the word, it will move the cursor. You have to first hide the cursor before you can use the gestures.

I originally had high hopes for the touch keyboard's ability to replace the trackpad, but it doesn't come close.

I want a trackpad on the slider, but I think they could put it UNDER the mechanism, ie it would only appear when the slide is open..
Don't need it when in "all touch" mode.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.1.2480 | any questions? Feel free to shoot me a msg @ http://www.pin.bbm.com/C003EA0BE

Don't forget that the passport is the first device to use the touch sensitive keyboard. I'm sure that it will be improved with newer versions that are more accurate and capable than the current one is. If the slider does have a touch sensitive keyboard they may have come far enough with the tech to make it as good as a trackpad. I really don't know why BlackBerry would just stop trying to make improvements to one of their best standout features. At this point that is just as likely as it having a trackpad.

[DaedalusIcarusHelios]

I would like to see a touch-enabled KB on the slider. It'd make it more innovative (I'm assuming they implement it as well as on the Passport or even better) than a traditional slider. If it doesn't, then it would probably need a trackpad, because it'd just be too awkward without either one.

[RyanGermann]

Don't forget that the passport is the first device to use the touch sensitive keyboard. I'm sure that it will be improved with newer versions that are more accurate and capable than the current one is. If the slider does have a touch sensitive keyboard they may have come far enough with the tech to make it as good as a trackpad. I really don't know why BlackBerry would just stop trying to make improvements to one of their best standout features. At this point that is just as likely as it having a trackpad.

I think the behaviour of the Passport keyboard can be improved with software tweaks including additional options like the amount of delay required for certain actions to occur, and virtual keyboard keys to toggle or change the behaviour of the keyboard (rather then having to hold down the shift key to select, just add a gesture or button to the on-screen keyboard as an option in the settings for example) or let me customize the 1 row virtual keyboard with my own symbols, even to the point of having 2 rows... so the quirkiness of the Passport keyboard isn't irredeemable, it's just "version 1.0".

...but I agree with you that the Passport keyboard doesn't replace a trackpad in the same way a tuna fish sandwich doesn't replace a DVD player. Both have their uses.

[CTU2fan]

The difference is that a track pad can also be a button with unambiguous contextual use: for example, when the cursor is over a link in a Web page and the pointer is a pointing finger, click the track pad to activate that link... but if you use the touch-sensitive keyboard, you move a pointer without changing focus so pressing enter acts on whatever on-screen object has focus, not what the mouse pointer is over.

Should the space bar on a touch-sensitive keyboard be the equivalent of clicking the track pad in all contexts? No, because if a text box has focus, the space bar should insert a space, not change focus to whatever is under the mouse pointer.

maybe if the touch sensitive keyboard had one more button that acts like a 'activate whatever is under the cursor' button, equivalent to a trackpad click, it could approach the usefulness of a trackpad... even if that was an on-screen button... that would be a 'no trackpad' compromise I could live with better than the current Passport keyboard usage paradigm.

A device optimized for productivity needs to support the notion of "the current main thing" as well as "a secondary thing" or "the next thing". Most mobile device platforms only support "the current main thing" via touch. BlackBerry devices with the trackpad allow "the next thing" to be visible / chosen without changing what "the current thing" is, and that provides capabilities not possible with just a touchscreen, or a touch-sensitive keyboard that lacks a purpose-built 'activate the highlighted-but-not-yet-activated thing' button.

Totally agree with this.

I will say there are ways to optimize the touch sensitive kb to make it a better trackpad substitute - for example the ENTER key could be analagous to pressing the trackpad to click a link.

But I'd still prefer a trackpad. All the arguments against it I've seen have been from a looks/aesthetics point of view, and I don't particularly care how a trackpad or toolbelt will look on a device.

Posted via CB10

[pttptppt]

Guys unfortunately, I don't think it'll be touch sensitive. If you make the picture of the Slider very clear, you see that the keyboard resembles that of the q5. Nevertheless, the keys have gaps between them (as opposed to the passport's keys) so it's unlikely that it's touch sensitive

Posted via CB10

[deadcowboy]

I'd kill for a touch enabled keyboard that had a cursor functionality like the Classic. I wonder if that kind of precision is possible.

Posted via CB10

[RyanGermann]

dupe no delete cb10

[MarsupilamiX]

Touch enabled keyboard: I'll buy the slider.
Trackpad: I won't buy the slider.

[pttptppt]

Touch enabled keyboard: I'll buy the slider.
Trackpad: I won't buy the slider.

Agreed 101%!!!

Posted via CB10

[ToniCipriani]

The difference is that a track pad can also be a button with unambiguous contextual use: for example, when the cursor is over a link in a Web page and the pointer is a pointing finger, click the track pad to activate that link... but if you use the touch-sensitive keyboard, you move a pointer without changing focus so pressing enter acts on whatever on-screen object has focus, not what the mouse pointer is over.

Should the space bar on a touch-sensitive keyboard be the equivalent of clicking the track pad in all contexts? No, because if a text box has focus, the space bar should insert a space, not change focus to whatever is under the mouse pointer.

maybe if the touch sensitive keyboard had one more button that acts like a 'activate whatever is under the cursor' button, equivalent to a trackpad click, it could approach the usefulness of a trackpad... even if that was an on-screen button... that would be a 'no trackpad' compromise I could live with better than the current Passport keyboard usage paradigm.

A device optimized for productivity needs to support the notion of "the current main thing" as well as "a secondary thing" or "the next thing". Most mobile device platforms only support "the current main thing" via touch. BlackBerry devices with the trackpad allow "the next thing" to be visible / chosen without changing what "the current thing" is, and that provides capabilities not possible with just a touchscreen, or a touch-sensitive keyboard that lacks a purpose-built 'activate the highlighted-but-not-yet-activated thing' button.

On laptop trackpads, other than the physical buttons and clicky trackpads, older ones that don't click can detect taps as a mpuse click.

Just implement a detection for tapping on the keyboard.

[RyanGermann]

On laptop trackpads, other than the physical buttons and clicky trackpads, older ones that don't click can detect taps as a mpuse click.

Just implement a detection for tapping on the keyboard.

That could work but there might be a lot of false positives when you're typing that it thinks you're double tapping... on a trackpad on a computer, you're not constantly "single tapping" for any reason so that when a double tap occurs it is not ambiguous... you're "single tapping" on a keyboard all the time... that's why I think it needs to be a separate button on the screen that you can use to put the keyboard into "trackpad mode".

If you're typing text and suddenly decide you want to select a range of text, what you DON'T want to do is type text at the moment... you want the keyboard to "become" a trackpad: click the "trackpad toggle" virtual key on the screen, reposition the cursor with the touch-sensitive keyboard, click another button to start a selection (or in this "not typing" context, double tap the keyboard) then reposition the cursor by moving on the keyboard, tap to end the selection. Show the cut / copy icons (why not on the bottom row where the VKB row is?) and then it exits "trackpad" mode with a visible selection (if "copy" was chosen instead of "cut") with text in the clipboard to paste elsewhere.

I'd like to be a beta tester for that... I wonder if it could be done completely as an app without changes to the OS? (any BB10 native app developers want to give it a try? :-) )

[pttptppt]

That could work but there might be a lot of false positives when you're typing that it thinks you're double tapping... on a trackpad on a computer, you're not constantly "single tapping" for any reason so that when a double tap occurs it is not ambiguous... you're "single tapping" on a keyboard all the time... that's why I think it needs to be a separate button on the screen that you can use to put the keyboard into "trackpad mode".

If you're typing text and suddenly decide you want to select a range of text, what you DON'T want to do is type text at the moment... you want the keyboard to "become" a trackpad: click the "trackpad toggle" virtual key on the screen, reposition the cursor with the touch-sensitive keyboard, click another button to start a selection (or in this "not typing" context, double tap the keyboard) then reposition the cursor by moving on the keyboard, tap to end the selection. Show the cut / copy icons (why not on the bottom row where the VKB row is?) and then it exits "trackpad" mode with a visible selection (if "copy" was chosen instead of "cut") with text in the clipboard to paste elsewhere.

I'd like to be a beta tester for that... I wonder if it could be done completely as an app without changes to the OS? (any BB10 native app developers want to give it a try? :-) )

If someone succeeded in doing this (which I highly doubt), it would only work in that app. Because of lack of api's (security reasons and all), changes made in an app won't transition into other apps, especially not system apps like docs2go or the txt msg app

Posted via CB10

[ToniCipriani]

I would assume when you're typing, you actually press down on the physical key? Vs a tap wouldn't necessarily click onto the keyboard key, just a light tap.