A chorded touch keyboard?
asked 2015-10-08 13:43:22 +0200
The idea
The picture above shows a Microwriter Agenda pocket computer. The interesting bit is the highlighted keys. By pressing combinations of those keys it is possible to type text on a very small device.
A smartphone touchscreen is quite similar in size. So the idea is simply to create a chord keyboard like the Microwriter for SailfishOS. Even if the Microwriter keypad has more than five keys it is still possible to emulate on a five-point touchscreen as there' are only five fingers on a hand. The layout for the thumb would probably need some reconfiguration, though.
Using the chord keyboard for text input on a phone might not make much sense. The fingers would cover most of the text. But if the content is moved to an external display then a chord keyboard would allow entry of larger texts. The current Jolla phone lacks video out capabilities but future Sailfish phones would certainly have that.
A Microwriter-style chorded keyboard would shrink the footprint of the jollaDesk concept by removing the need for an external keyboard.