[Android General] nugroho2:
Typing, Sliding, Shortcut with Google Keyboard.

See http://xdaforums.com/android/general/tutorial-google-keyboard-indonesian-t3215118

The Technique

Q. Do you type or slide with this keyboard?

A. Both. Mostly I slide. But sometimes I type; that's when I encounter a new word, or I don't have a reliable shortcut for the word/phrase, or when sliding fails twice or more. When it fails once, I try again. But if that fails again, I type...

Q. I am sliding a word and I realize that I make a mistake halfway before finishing the gesture. What should I do?

A. Just extend the slide to outside area above the keyboard. No word will be entered.

Just slide outside past the upper number rows

Q. I slide a word, and at the end of the slide the intended word is not shown. What should I do?

A. If you haven't lifted up your finger, you can try to move the finger a bit. Sometimes your word or phrase will be shown.

The Training – Keyboard must learn

Q. How does the keyboard learn shortcuts?

A.The keyboard learns not only shortcuts but also normal words. It learns how you type or slide. After finishing sliding, a word or phrase is displayed. When you touch the space key or other keys, that means you accept the word/phrase as the intended word. If your word/phrase does not show up, don’t touch anything except the BACK key. It will erase the word or phrase. The keyboard learns that it is wrong, and will not show that suggestion again. When you repeat the same strokes, other word/phrase will be displayed.

In the left picture below, I slide the shortcut letters “indo” for Indonesia. I didn’t make a mistake and the word was displayed just fine. But I change my mind, no, I will write another word. I press the BACK key. But wait, perhaps that word is right, I slide again “indo”. “Indonesia” will not be displayed because when you pressed BACK, the keyboard thought it made a wrong suggestion.

Sometimes a new shortcut is difficult to learn. In that case, you have to repeat 3 - 4 times. If this fails, try typing the shortcut. It may be displayed in the suggestion list above the keyboard. But some shortcut just can’t be learned, in that case you have to change it.

The Shortcut

Q. How do you make shortcuts?

A. I try to make a consistent rule. But life is not always consistent, you know.

Make shortcut that is in straight line of the stroke or can be bended easily. For instance, for the word “sekali”, I just use a straight line “skl” and it works alright.

For Indonesian words:

The first letter is maintained. For a word with a prefix such as “per”, the prefix is kept.

Words with only 2 or 3 consonants will have that consonants as the shortcut. But often times several words will get the same shortcut. I just test which one is most often used and provide a consistent expansion of words or phrase. If needed, 2 different words can have 1 shortcut.

In QWERTY keyboard, vowels are placed in the far left and far right, leaving consonants crammed in the middle. Using consonants-only can mean shorter strokes for the finger. For typing with two hands or two fingers QWERTY makes life much easier, but it is a pain for sliding. As such, phones with smaller screen can be better for sliding; 4 to 4.5 inch displays is best for sliding and chatting.

Indonesian language has a lot of words ending in the suffix "an" and "nya". I usually shorten that into "n" and "ny". Remember, one letter can mean two strokes.

Double words are the norm for describing plurals in Indonesian. In the past, people used to use the number 2 for this such as "adik2" for "adik-adik". As the original Google keyboard doesn't have numbers above the keyboard, I simply substitute "x" for it. So, “adik2” is shortened to “adikx”. For words that have been shortened, I just use the shortcut + x. Please note, with the Lollipop 123 keyboard, you can slide straight to the number keys above. Hence you have more choice for shortcuts.

For long words, such as "perkembangan", perhaps the consonants “perkmbg” will do fine as a shortcut. Or even shorter, “perkmb”. I can just add “ny” for the suffix “nya”.

For phrases you most often use, make shortcuts! That'll help a lot. “Where r you?”, “How are you today?” etc is a simple 3 letter shortcut.

Some people (sorry, I really forget the source) suggest using double letter as shortcut. Great idea! For instance, "gg" for gmail address, "yy" for Yahoo address. You can try that. Of course you have to type to get the double letters. Or “QQ”, “QQQ”, “QQQQ” or all mail adresses. The choice is yours.

I make shortcuts for all my numbers and addresses. For ID my shortcut is "myID" or "myKTP" in Indonesian. For my home phone number I use "myHome". (Never mind the capital letter; it will be ignored; case insensitive.) MyXXXX for my phone number, my passport, my home address, etc. You will remember that easily.

Symbols (smilies for smile or sad, arrows, long line) can be easily written by sliding rather than typing. See them in my shortcut file. If you install the add-on Emoji keyboard, you don’t need to make a shortcut to display emojis. But sometimes the default shorthand is just too long. Shorten that as a shortcut.

Smilies and symbols

See Skanger on emoji (http://skangerland.blogspot.co.id/2013/06/android-emoji-word-list.html) View the PDF.

Q.I couldn't slide in some fields.

A. Yes. You cannot slide within a password field. That is very bad as password is very often used and it usually contains numbers + letters or symbols that is difficult to type. Don't worry. You can do it if you install Xposed/WSM framework with Always Correct module.