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question about keyboard

using Iworks and such programs
Does the keyboard's keys work.. All the extra keys and character keys? What about the tab button / caps.

I have the ipad but not a keyboard and wanted to see if it was worth getting to type reports quicker.

ipad

Posted on Apr 4, 2010 7:53 PM

Reply
7 replies

Apr 15, 2010 9:14 AM in response to cokeicee

Hi cokeicee,

So I did some quick testing.

The normal typing keys on the Bluetooth keyboard work fine.

As the iPad is a touch based device there is no Arrow Cursor, so moving around with the keyboard is rather limited.

If you are in a Text field or typing in Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Safari etc, where there is an insertion point cursor, the arrow keys do move you around and shift arrow keys select, but they don't scroll you around the screen other than that. Arrow keys don't scroll Safari for example.

In Pages, Command or Control Up or Down Arrow keys move you to the top or bottom of the document. Option Up or Down move a paragraph at a time. Again, this is because you have an insertion point cursor, not an arrow cursor.

Tab does move between text entry fields in Safari, but it doesn't move to a new cell in Numbers. It just tabs within the cell during text entry. (couldn't find a setting to change that behavior). While typing the Tab key inserts a Tab character as expected.

In Keynote, except for the text entry as above, the arrow and tab keys appear to do nothing. They don't move to the next or previous slide while composing the presentation. They don't move selected objects in the slide. They don't control the slides while Presenting. In fact, it doesn't look like there is any way to control the presentation from the Bluetooth keyboard. (There are other threads on that topic).

Is there anything else you need tested with the keyboard? Great for entering text. You still use the touch screen for navigation. (I like that you can set the external for DVORAK)

ivan

Apr 30, 2010 7:14 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

How about the language keyboard simply being correct? I routinely use French, German and English. I can load all the keyboards, and changing between is easy.

However, once that has happened, I can not tell by looking at the keyboard which language I have. Now, since both French and German have additional characters from English, obviously there is a problem. Those characters are not on the front keyboard where they belong. Nor is the layout correct for either of those language.

Asking me to touch, hold and then select another letter is wrong. It makes this an extremely painful process. This a programing issue....

When can we expect a fix?

Apr 30, 2010 8:32 AM in response to Proseknitic

However, once that has happened, I can not tell by looking at the keyboard which language I have.


Are you talking about the virtual keyboards? If so, you should be able to see the difference between qwerty, azerty, and qwertz for English, French, and German, no?

Asking me to touch, hold and then select another letter is wrong. It makes this an extremely painful process. This a programing issue....When can we expect a fix?


You need to tell Apple how you want the virtual keyboards changed using this channel:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

Nobody can tell you if or when your suggestions will be adopted, and Apple never provides advance info on such things.

Since the current virtual layout system has been used for several years now in the iPhone and iPod, and a large number of people are probably used to it, I personally doubt that it will be changed any time soon by Apple. But perhaps apps can be created that provide custom layouts -- already there are apps available for keyboards for some of the missing languages on the iPad, like Greek, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Korean, and Vietnamese.

To have the normal layouts, you can use a hardware keyboard instead of the virtual one. A list of layouts that can be set is here:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/ipadkbs.html

question about keyboard

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