What's new

Desktop mode without a keyboard, useless?

yalden

New Member
Hi all,

Firstly I'd like to begin by saying that I am a big fan of the Surface, otherwise I wouldn't have parted with almost £500 to own one. That said, I am having several issues when using the touch screen functionality within desktop mode, which for the most part feels very fluid and far more accessible than the touch cover. I'm even writing reports in word using the touch screen.

Since taking ownership I've been keeping a log of noted issues and now I'm hoping you can step in and offer some tips or advice!

1 - When viewing images using the preview function within desktop mode (hold on screen for right click menu, then select ‘preview’), if you click on slideshow there is no physical way to then exit out of the slideshow. The only way around this that I’ve found is to go back to the Win8 tiles and open one of the office programmes, which then minimises the slideshow and allows you to close it.

2 - When browsing files within explorer, if you hold on screen for right click menu and then select ‘send to’ > ‘mail recipient’ it doesn’t recognise any mail client. Surely it should be sync’d to the supplied mail app.

3 - When in desktop mode is there any way of setting the touch screen keyboard to pop up each time a text field is selected.

4 - The text boxes on this forum don’t function correctly when accessing from my Surface, which is pretty lame considering this is possibly the best available resource for the Surface tablet. I click on the text box and my on screen keyboard appears, then immediately disappears. The only work around seems to be to click on another field, such as the 'Trackback' field and then click back on to the main text input box. Just to note, I lost this entire post earlier as having spotted a mistake I clicked my screen to go to a specific point in the text and as I hit the backspace key my keyboard was going in to hide and for whatever reason my surface went back to the previous page, losing all my progress on this thread post.

5 - Where is the auto screen brightness sensor? I find my screen fade seems fairly sporadic and am conscious that perhaps my hand placement is the cause. When using word I hold the tablet in portrait with the Windows button to my right (I hold the top edge of the tablet in my left hand and type with my right hand).

6 - Is there any way to select multiple files in explorer when they are not located immediately adjacent one another, i.e. a way to click on random files, which could then be copied or renamed etc.

Of all the above the forum issue remains the most annoying, almost to the point that I'm close to giving up on accessing the site via my Surface.

Regards,

Chrid
 

bosamar

Well-Known Member
All of your concerns/questions have been previously addressed. My brain hurts. Go to the Help section for answers. BTY I'm very impressed with the length of your post. :big smile:. BTY I'm old and dyslexic.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Answers in-line

1 - When viewing images using the preview function within desktop mode (hold on screen for right click menu, then select ‘preview’), if you click on slideshow there is no physical way to then exit out of the slideshow. The only way around this that I’ve found is to go back to the Win8 tiles and open one of the office programmes, which then minimises the slideshow and allows you to close it.
Answer - Press and hold in the slide show to bring up the context menu and select exit

2 - When browsing files within explorer, if you hold on screen for right click menu and then select ‘send to’ > ‘mail recipient’ it doesn’t recognise any mail client. Surely it should be sync’d to the supplied mail app.
Answer – Correct, currently the interaction between the Desktop Send to Mail is still looking for a desktop mail app, not a Modern App

3 - When in desktop mode is there any way of setting the touch screen keyboard to pop up each time a text field is selected.
Answer – There was a modification to the API in Windows 8/RT, currently Office 2013 is the only desktop app the has implemented correctly


4 - The text boxes on this forum don’t function correctly when accessing from my Surface, which is pretty lame considering this is possibly the best available resource for the Surface tablet. I click on the text box and my on screen keyboard appears, then immediately disappears. The only work around seems to be to click on another field, such as the 'Trackback' field and then click back on to the main text input box. Just to note, I lost this entire post earlier as having spotted a mistake I clicked my screen to go to a specific point in the text and as I hit the backspace key my keyboard was going in to hide and for whatever reason my surface went back to the previous page, losing all my progress on this thread post.
Answer – Try this thread: http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...ft-keyboard-does-not-work-forum.html#post7464

5 - Where is the auto screen brightness sensor? I find my screen fade seems fairly sporadic and am conscious that perhaps my hand placement is the cause. When using word I hold the tablet in portrait with the Windows button to my right (I hold the top edge of the tablet in my left hand and type with my right hand).
Answer – Under PC Settings – General – Screen – Turn Off

6 - Is there any way to select multiple files in explorer when they are not located immediately adjacent one another, i.e. a way to click on random files, which could then be copied or renamed etc.
Answer – You can click just left of the file name and it will select the box, works best in Details View
 
Last edited by a moderator:

J515OP

Super Moderator
Hi Chrid, congrats and welcome. I must confess I haven't used touch that extensively in Desktop so I can answer all of your questions. The forum field issue is a known problem. The work arounds are as you noted or to change your settings for the forum to what you see is what you get. This has the unfortunate effect of losing the new line function though so you end up with one giant paragraph. Another option is to compose in work and then copy and paste into the forum.

In many browsers using the backspace key works as go back a page. I'm not sure if you can change this in browser settings but you may want to use the Delete key for editing instead (I have done the same thing many times on many sites with standard PCs).

The last thing is the light sensor is next to the camera. So according to your description you are covering it with your left hand. You may want to try rotating the tablet into portrait the other direction so that the Window key is under your left hand instead.

I'll look into the other issues and am sure others here might be able to offer assistance too. They are good questions and I am sure that getting the responses to them will help many people.


JP

Edit: Just beat out by Jeff ;)
 
OP
Y

yalden

New Member
Thanks for the replies, I apologise that my post covers old ground and admittedly I should've used the search function. I appreciate all comments and hope that over time many of the noted problems will be fixed via updates.

Being able to exit slideshow mode and select multiple files just by clicking on screen will serve very useful.

Supposing anyone has time for one final question...

Why when in Internet Explorer and swiping back to the previous page does it automatically reload the page? When working on the fly, using my phone as a mobile hotspot, it seems crazy that I should have to re-download data which I may have only downloaded moments earlier. I can't see any settings to help fix this issue.


Thanks,

Chris
 
Top