Smarter on-screen keyboard behavior?

[Ryan Whipple]

I recently put my finger on a big difference in UX between my Surface and iPad: in iOS, the keyboard only appears when you can enter text. When no text field is active, the keyboard goes away. In contrast, on Surface, I open the keyboard to enter a URL into Chrome, hit enter, then have to manually close the keyboard to see the page, manually open the keyboard to enter a new URL and then manually close it, etc. Is there a feature/option that makes the on-screen keyboard smarter and more intuitive? If not, is this a feature that might appear in Win10 or future updates?

-Ryan

 

[Kris]

The SP3 definitely needs a different keyboard interface and a smarter one. Only reason I can think as to why they have left it as half ass as it is is because they want you to buy the surface pro cover. I don't have a cover and agree with you that something needs to be done about it but doubt it will ever happen. Biggest excuse is that it works with MUI apps so its the other programs faults that it doesn't work as designed...

 

[hughlle]

The SP3 definitely needs a different keyboard interface and a smarter one. Only reason I can think as to why they have left it as half ass as it is is because they want you to buy the surface pro cover. I don't have a cover and agree with you that something needs to be done about it but doubt it will ever happen. Biggest excuse is that it works with MUI apps so its the other programs faults that it doesn't work as designed...

i dont know the specifics but you are right in it being the programs fault, it can be a lot of work to rework. even IE cant automatically call the keyboard. Windows 10 looks to rectify this though. its still not perfect, but its slowly getting there.

i just want that they make the spacebar a little easier to hit instead of pressing n or m! has anyone ever done an ergonomic touch keyboard?

 

[JoshB]

I would love to see them incorporate swipe typing functionality like they have on windows mobile right now too.

 

[bluegrass]

I have used a windows phone for two years now and never use the swiping between letters. It's just messes with me to see when it thinks I'm trying to do it. I can't see that feature being useful at all.

 

[logger]

i just want that they make the spacebar a little easier to hit instead of pressing n or m!

Me too. Granted I have the same problem on the iPad.
A setting that mapped the lower 25% of the adjacent "cvbnm," keys to the spacebar would probably fix this annoyance.