yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
Some people might remember me from the Wizard forums...

it has been a long time since I made a public contribution on this forum, but the time has come that I will be making another one soon. it is not a full rom as of yet, but it is somthing that might be just as good.

If you look in my signature I have been working and testing a theory that graphics processing is a major contributer to laggy interface. one of the problems is the keyboard that we have come to depend on (the on screen keyboard made by HTC)

this keyboard has about 100 image files that the cpu has to process some from the PNG files and most in the SIPBITMAPS.DLL . well, I went through all of them 88 in the dll + the png files. got rid of the dithering, made uniform color schemes and overall optimised the gfx to be as light weight as possible. so light in fact that the package weighs nearly 25% less than the original one made by HTC.

I need some testers. ones who type really fast with the EZ INPUT KEYBOARD. once it is tested and proven that it is in fact faster, I will release it to the public. those interested in testing, PM me so that I can send you the CAB and directions (testting conditions)

If you have bench marking programs that would help too.

thanks for testing.

P.S. the point of this exersise is to give me a reason to "fix" the lag in the 10mb of ram eating phone skin which take a full 2 seconds to load. I figur if the keyboard is improved the most vital part of our phones should be fixed. it just takes a lot more work for those files... and it better be worth spending more than tree days of my time fixing it.

Testing Conditions:

[EDIT 2/18/10] For those who do not have the same version of 2.1 keyboard and may have a different layout, I attached the XML files out of my package. I don't know if it will work to fix your layout, but it might. let me know if it works

[EDIT 2/22/2010] I added My PSD files for those who wish to change the skin in any way. I also added a comment for the .zip file.

For those who wish to change the background to a SOLID grey, you just need to change the black background to a grey of your choice. for those who wish to have the old dithered background with a lot of colors, then just make the black layer invisible (although the keyboard will run slower)

HINT: when it comes to PNG's, black is least in bytes as opposed to GIF's where it is oposite. With bitmaps it does not matter, what matters ultimately is the complexity of the pixel mosaic.

Have fun :)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] Scalage:
A great idea! That must've taken quite a while to figure out :eek:

But I'm not really a fast typer when it comes to the on-screen keyboard, so I'll wait for the (possibly) public release.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
does not seem like there is much interest.

either due to the holiday, or what?

I tested it last night while playing music and there is no lag. there is a bit of a lag when rotating to landscape, but only lasts about two seconds and the lag is gone. (while playing music) maybe I should post some screens or have the mods move ot to the dev/hack section. some people rely on the screen keyboard only.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] halorin:
I would like to test this out. :)

I think I can type pretty fast on the on-screen keyboard, well, if it allowed me to. Primarily I find myself having to slow down when I hit space. Sometimes I'll go so fast the space input doesn't register, effectively merging the words together. :(
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
Hey man, I'll give it a test drive for you...just know that I'm on the stock T-mobile US 6.1 ROM. I'm sure I'll be texting as much this afternoon as ever, so I'll give it a try and see how it feels.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
ADDED THE CAB ON THE FIRST POST sorry for the caps.

try it and let me know how it works for you. seems a lot faster than the original.

I also just installed the russian cab, and it is slow as hell in comparison. so I know it works.

enjoy.

I think that if I make a new phone skin, I will have to do it on the basis of donations recieved for the keyboard. just too much work.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
Just saw your update, and grabbed the .cab, will start using it first thing in the AM, and have impressions by end of the day.

Thanks a lot for the effort either way...I'm trying every improvement to the on-screen kb that I can find, to make me less jittery about moving to the HD2 in a month or two :D
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] WoZZeR999:
I tested your cab, and it does seem to respond better, and the letter's pop up faster. I'm probably not the fastest phone typer, but the original files would not keep up with me. With your fixed files, it seems to do a much better job, although still not as fast as I type. I'm running IME 1922/2011, so I'm not 100% sure how much of a difference it makes, but if you want I can run a spb benchmark with 1920 before and after installing your speedy files.

Glad to see you in the WVGA stuff, I used some of your stuff when I had an omnia.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] dunebuggydude11:
I installed it a few mins ago and I can already notice quite a difference. Before, like ^^ he said, the buttons would not keep up with me typing, but now that lag is completely gone. I would say it is a very noticeable difference if you use the soft keyboard much. Thank you very much. (BTW, I am on the 2/14 SSS R8.5 ROM with Manila 2012)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
I think the trick to doing a comparison is do a soft reset; turn on some long mp3 and type. first with the original keyboard, then with mine (black background and dithering removed).

I'm glad that it is working better for you... hopefully this will be a good performance upgrade for all of us.:)

The damn phone skin has such complicated gfx that I will have to make a different dialer button (the red and green one) it won't look as nice, but the interface should behave a little faster... especially when cooked in.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] thorfr:
tested on my topaz with last duttys ROM 6.5.3 and its better ty :)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] pimpol10:
Not working correctly on Sprint Version

Everything seems a bit faster, but the symbol on the space bar is mess up.

Instead of the regular symbol there's just a line in down the middle of the space bar. Function wise, works perfect. Mike

Sprint TP2 Stock 6.1
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
HUGE difference!

Ok, so I've been trying this out all morning, and I have to say it's a dramatic improvement of the response speed of the on-screen keyboard :eek:

My error rate has also dropped significantly since using it...I thought I was usually just fat-fingering a lot of keys, but now that they respond much faster I'm making 10% of the typos I did before.

I've also noticed that part of what makes it faster is how its quicker to pull up the symbol (punctuation, etc) on a long-press, that was one of the first things I noticed when trying it.

It looks good too, I think, save for that split-spacebar mentioned above. Oh, and one minor detail...the graphic for the XT9 switch doesn't change when you toggle it. I almost never use that, so not a big deal to me, just an fyi.

So....great job S.V.I, thanks!! If I can get the on-screen KB on the HD2 (once I get it) to be this smooth, I won't feel nearly as bad about it not having a physical KB ;)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
which version are you using???

IME_EzInput_Western_2_1_19202429_00 is the one in my rom stock tmo 6.5

I do not have the issue with the space bar not showing up right.

also, just to make sure that I uploaded the right cab, is the space bar in a grey box or a black box (meaning the background) are you using a different language?? can you post a screenshot?
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] ChasDun:
Will this work on any TP2, GSM and CDMA?
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
Here's what the split spacebar looks like...works fine though. Again, this is on Tmob US 6.1 stock ROM.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
That explains it. the EZINPUT in the 6.1 rom is 2.0 while in the 6.5 rom it is 2.1

the SIPBitmaps dll is different. that would explain why you do not have the xt9 button showing up either. it is a different version of the keyboard.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
Understood, that makes sense. It really doesn't seem to have any impact on the overall effectiveness of your changes, so those two minor things don't bother me at all.

I've been using it all day now, and it looks like this will finally let me give the slider on my HW keyboard a much-needed break! :D
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] chopsxxx:
Fantastic idea, great work! I'll test it out now...
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
only 34 downloads...

where should I post this so that it gets the best exposure???
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] ctbear:
I would suggest the development and hacking subforums...this forum here is just not popular enough :rolleyes:
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] NRGZ28:
I'll tell you what would get the best exposure.. me tweeting about it to a few thousand people :)

I'm testing it right now to see if it really makes a difference and it does... can I cook it in my ROMs ? I actually use the exact version of ezinput you talk about in all my WVGA ROMs :)

p.s. It really DOES make a difference. The lag is about 90% gone. Dont know if I can live with the black background, but it's something I can probably get used to, just like with anything new :)

Here's goes a tweet to see if more people can test this and give you their opinion :)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] bin_laden681:
Mission acomplished NRGZ!:D
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] lmeyers:
Seems fast!

Background is different but so far so good on

|R|6.5.5|ROM|WWE| ★ Energy "Leo" 23529/21892 |Feb 16| ★ Sense 2.5.2012

I use this keyboard quite a but. More input later.

Thanks for the Tweet NRG
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] tehfifi:
Thank you sir!

Very nice mod. Been using it for about an hour.. definite improvement and solving one of the little peeves I've had with this keyboard compared to others I've used.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] yunchikan:
thanks for the mod!!

ive been suffering with the slowness of the keyboard when replying sms. [most likely due to me changing my manila display language]

now its so much faster :]

nice!

thanks nrg for notifying us :D
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] Incarniac:
I second the above!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] 619619:
The key layout is messed up "space" and "shift" are shifted up, no difference in speed so far.

HD2 with RomeOS 3.01 WM 23529
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] orlandojumpoff:
hi, i'm running a custom rom (s3 from deck) on a cdma tp2. i'm guessing he uses a different version of the htc keyboard because the gfx have some glitches. the spacebar has a line through it and the key to switch xt9/abc doesn't display a change. it will change, just doesn't show that it actually changed on the gfx. screenshot attached..
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] NRGZ28:
I just looked in your CAB in post #1 and man did you make those PNGs small!! 3-4-5kb each. Guess you're really liking that "perceptual color palette" option in Photoshop. It really does make PNGs a lot smaller, by fooling our eyes. :) Great job dude! You should take this further to Sense (*manila) files and all rest of the graphics heavy packages in today's ROMs.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] sirphunkee:
Yes, that's the effects of a different version of the keyboard being in your ROM...I had the same exact effects (and the keyboard still worked fine), S.V.I explained it back in post #17 in this thread.

I imagine that if you switch to landscape, the letter/key visual alignment is off too, yes..?
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] DutchDanny:
I also installed the cab, and the response is realy faster the the HTC keys.

Nice work !
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] NRGZ28:
Like the guy mentioned already this cab only works on CERTAIN ezinput versions. It's not a universal cab! Make sure what you got, matches what he specified.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
Yes you can cooc it into your rom, provided you tell people where it came from. Oh, and you should remove the tutorial at first boot. for some reason, after this package, it refuses to show the keyboard, and is basically useless

Thanks for tweeting about it.. time to get famous:cool:

most of the keyboard is greyscale, but the color images (adaptive) The bitmaps were saved as 8bit png's and then saved as 8 bit bitmaps. and ofcourse, every file was built from sratch to make sure that there is NO DITHERING.. because that is the very thing that makes processing the image take longer. If you zoom in, you will see hat there is a very simplified pattern to every image making the cpu have to deal with something more "predictable".

Sorry you don't like the black background. the bottom bar on most stock roms is flat black, and I wanted it to blend in with it and the rest of the phone. I guess you will not like the phone skin either. :p

and yes, the packages in my rom have been mostly optimised, but to trully optimise it, you would have to build all new gfx from scratch... too much work.. but slowly, and surely, I am working the biggest ones first.:D I wish there was a job where I could get paid to do this. Kinda wish that HTC would make me an offer to reduce their 200mb oem (WTF?!?!)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] maaz_talha:
testing now (arrived following NRGZ28's tweet)

this promises to be a MASSIVE step forward for the user experience for windows mobile.

...waiting for phone to restart after installation........ {impatient..}

testing in the native windows texting client. on NRGZ's 16 Feb 21xxx cookiemonster rom

It does indeed work more fluently, and there is a noticeable increase in typing speed.

Pulling the keyboard and minimizing it are quick.

Initial testing seems stability is not an issue, but will report any issues i may notice.

Increase in speed is most obvious when DISABLING predictive texting. Unfortunately, with predictive texting enabled, the typing doesnt seem enhanced, thus suggesting the rate limiting factor is the predictive texting client, rather than the keyboard ui.

This feature is almost good enough to pull me back from my swype keyboard. however, its limitation with predictive texting is a little disappointing. nonetheless, this does not take anything away from the change in UI and its obvious enhancements in speed.

Really like this advancement, and appreciate the thinking that functionality should get priority over "looking pretty". lucky for us, this layout looks fine as well an enhancing functioning.

I think this is an excellent piece of work, and demonstrates clarity of thinking and innovative problem solving. I think advances in this area will benefit the windows mobile space greatly.

Thank you for your work
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] wickedninjalo:
Nice very nice. Deff faster thanks for making that! lovin the black outline. and thx nrg for twitting that!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] brysonwong:
This works for me alot! Typing seems faster now. :)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
Thanks for everyone's responses. I posted a cab with XML's for this keyboard. this should fix some of the issues you all may be having (those who do not have the exact keyboard I have)

If you see an alignment problem once you install the keyboard, make a backup, and install the XML's cab in the first post. It should be uninstallable, and I believe it will work with ez input 2.0 as well. after looking at the packages they seem have too many similarities not to.

Let me know if it works for you. Thanks.

(On another note, I am working on the dialer for the 5th day now:eek:)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] orlandojumpoff:
XML cab didn't seem to change anything. still have the line in middle of the spacebar. i installed kb cab soft reset, then installed xml cab... thanks for trying!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] jmbneaf:
Cool - came here from NRG's tweet too.

Works great on my AT&T Tilt II.

Only way this could be better is if a "Control" key was mapped in for ctrl-C copy / crtl-V paste shortcuts.

Thanks!

~J
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] chopsxxx:
Definitely a more responsive, more usable keyboard. Love it... Everywhere efficiency can get squeezed out of manila, the better!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] Fatamegana:
Great Job.

It really improves the imput speed.

tested on NRG_ROM (Energy.TOPAZ.23529.Leo_(Cookie_HomeTab_1.5.4).16.Feb.2010.rar)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] roycio:
Great job!. Typing is a lot more responsive in Energy.RHODIUM.21892.Leo_MaxManila.16.Feb.2010.

Learn about this reading NRG twitter
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] yunchikan:
hmm i think i found a bug..

when u go to opera browser and start typing on the url bar

the space bar changes to ".com" right?

but after that. it doesnt change back to the space bar even if i finished typing the url. so i can no longer access the space bar on the touch keyboard ><

does anyone else has this problem?

it works fine if you dont click on the url bar. but once u do, the spacebar never comes back XD
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
it should work that way untill you select the next place you are typing. have you tried using it woth PIE and facebook? usually, after I am done typing the url and the page loads, I select the box where i update the status. they keyboard pops back up normal. also, I use opera 10... never used 9 and never will...

either way, I can not confirm or deny the issue. there is no opera 9 in my rom.

[EDIT] Just tried it with Pie, and saw the keyboard go back to normal the second I hot rhe green enter key after entering the url. immediately, the keyboard went away.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] hughey:
Love it, keep up the good work!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] yunchikan:
hmm. i tried it on facebook. click on url field. then click to update status. and no spacebar..

i go install opera 10 beta 3 and see if it works :]

--edit--

just tried it with opera 10 beta 3. still no spacebar... =[

time for a hard reset. lol. i uninstalled your cab and the spacebar still wont comeback.

it might be something i did that caused that problem then. XD

--edit--

just hard reset, and now clicking on the address bar doesnt show "com" button at all.

which is fine by me :] if the problem comes up again i'll post again. hopefully not tho. XDDD
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] melv33na:
Works great!

I was directed to here from NRGZ's Tweet as well. Great work, I see huge improvements in typing speed and feels a lot smoother.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] meangreen:
+1, thanks to NRG for heads up,

S.V.I KB is quite responsive, thanks great work
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] LocDogg:
http://forum.ppcwarez.org/ would be a great place to post this as well :rolleyes:
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] pyrorob:
hi s.v.i. if you know of me then you know that ive been around since the wizard days and used to see you around alot back then. glad your back in the scene..

anyways i thought id post here to offer ant assistance that i can with making a improved phone canvas skin, if you check the link i have in my sig to the dialer thread that i have and look at the end you can see im currently working on a skin for the new 4.2 6212011 dialer, so i have experience in modifying it.

the reason im interested is, altering the dlls with a cab to adjust the skin results in a slow down of the graphics displaying and if they could be replaced with easier to load graphics then it should fix that issue and then some..

so send me a pm if youd like i would be really interested in working with you.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] orlandojumpoff:
off topic

lol there's actually another orlando magic fan out there? last place i'd expect to run into one is on XDA, awesome.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] leepriestenator:
It's really FAST!.

1) Is there anyway you can make an alternative version available with the original GRAY background?

2) Can you do the same thing with Swype? Now that would be killing it!
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] hasseye:
heyy im running the "IME_EZINPUT_WESTERN 2_1_2012" version...i noticed u said u were running the 2.1 version as well...do you think this would work fine or just as well in the version i use?

I get such a lag thats a painn in the @ss...what you have would be huge for me...

im hoping this would work for the phone keypad as well? thats mostly what i use...if not i hope a fix can come for the phonepad as well..let me know.

EDIT:

This works amazing especially when cooked in it works even faster.....using the latest EZinput 2.1 2011 works great with this...however the latest 2.1 2012 has slight graphic issues...SVI just wondering if you can update your skin to work with 2.1 2012 froom 2.10 tmobile rom.

sorry for the long post...another update it seems like htc has improved the speed of the stock 2.1 2012 keyboard....im gonna try to modify their keyboard using your skin....if we can then the speed might be the fastest keyboard yet.
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] S.V.I:
3 days of work...

So I have been a lot of requests lately. the first being if I can change the background back to GREY... the answer is no. because I don't want to spend the time on that. The second being can I update the newest version of ez input, to which the answer is maybe, If I have the packages and depending on if it is really worth my while. (yes, 3 days of work for free better be worth my while, especially since I have the Russian keyboard on the back burner waiting to get some work done on it after I finish the phone canvas)

The third request is the phone canvas. I would like to finish it... But I hear that there is a new version available out there... so what should I do: fix the phone canvas for people who flash custom roms with many different versions and future updates that will most likely be incompatable; or work on the one that came on the device for people who choose not to void their warranty??? I really don't have an answer to that.

I wish I had a magic wand or I could clone my self... having two **** jobs to pay for this apartment does not leave me much time to finish the t mobile rom that never got finished because a ton of impatient freeloaders screamed "class action" before T-Mo could release a rom worth downloading.

like a lot of cooks here I do not get donations, I make things for my self, and relese it to the public once I am finished and tested the things properly. I don't use other cook's custom roms, I make my own for my self based on my own needs.

I guess what I am trying to say is this: If I do not fulfill your request, it is because there is nothing in it for me. You might not like that answer, but i'm just being honest. I would not expect you to put in 36+ hours on a project so I could pat you on the back saying "nice job, can I have some more?" :D I get enough of that $#!+ from my 61+c# roommate who refuses to pay her share.

now that I am done with my rant, You can post the Phone Canvas and the keyboard (factory packages) and I will consider whether or not I should take on these projects.:)

P.S. I really do appreciate the the thanks and the compliments, and ofcourse you can use this in your rom, just don't forget to mention me.:)
[Touch Pro2, Tilt 2 Themes and Apps] SOHKis:
here's a modified sipbitmaps.dll w/grey images, should take care of the people seeking a grey'ed out version. (only the remaining green keys have been modified)

i'm gonna test it out now, if it works i can post the modified .cab