[Vibrant General] larrisa12002:
Bluetooth Keyboard Shortcuts on Samsung Vibrant

(And Possibly for Samsung Galaxy Tab)

Smartphones now come in bigger screens of up to 4 inches or more. It is no longer uncommon for a phone to have a 1 Ghz processor with storage of up to 32 GB on an external sd card. With these improved features, it is now convenient to use the smartphone as a replacement for the desktop PC or a laptop.

There is, however, one drawback. The built-in buttons and keyboards, whether slide-out hardware keyboard or screen keyboard on the phone, are too small to allow for easy typing. This is where a Bluetooth keyboard becomes a very useful tool. With the upswell of tablets and tablet wanabees on the market recently, this could also be possibly applied on tablets.

In my case, I have a Think Outside Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard which I am using with a Samsung Vibrant, aka Galaxy S or Samsung T959. I originally used the keyboard with a Nokia N82. When I bought the keyboard, it required drivers specific for the Nokia phone. Luckily, I was able to download a driver from the iGo website (iGo bought Think Outside). With that, I was able to use all the features of the keyboard. Although I haven’t had the chance to try it, these shortcuts might also be usable on a Galaxy Tab.

It is important to note that, even without an installer, the keyboard will work with other devices but this will be limited to simple typing of text. When my Vibrant phone was updated to Android 2.2, I was able to use my Bluetooth keyboard. While tinkering with it, I was able to devise some shortcuts to replace what operations would have been possible only with an installer. Please see the following:

First of all, observe that the keys in the Think Outside or iGo keyboard are color coded. If you press any of the keys, what appears on the screen re the default applications. For example, if you press “Q”, what appears is the letter “Q”. But if you press the blue “Fn” key and press “Q”, what appears is the number “1” which is color blue under the letter “Q” key. And when you press the green “Fn” key and “Q”, what you get is “!” which is color green on the “Q” key. And so on. But not everything works right. That’s what this piece is about. We will discuss some workarounds.

A word of caution. I cannot guarantee that this will work with other devices. Let us be clear about what hardware I am using: Samsung Vibrant and Think Outside Stowaway ultraslim Bluetooth keyboard. The keyboard is also known as the iGo Bluetooth keyboard. My phone is on Android 2.2. As for software, I am using Documents to Go v3 for document creation and editing. Being done with that, let’s get underway.

Most important shortcut: Green Fn key+Home.

These two keys are beside each other. This replaces the “home” button on the phone. Wherever you are on the phone, pressing these two keys brings you to the default home screen. You will find why this is the most important shortcut in the following.

Add applications shortcuts to the home screen. You will see that on the keyboard, highlighted in blue, are the following applications: Calendar, Contacts, Inbox, Notes, Word, Excel, IE. Simply pressing on these keys won’t work. What you do is press green Fn+home. If you have already placed shortcuts of the said applications on the home screen, press the direction arrows on the keyboard to get to the application you want to launch and press enter.

Illustration: Let’s say you’re browsing a webpage and you want to open the calendar. Press green Fn+home and you’re at the home screen. Scroll to calendar and it will launch. This presumes that you had earlier placed a calendar shortcut on the home screen. Of course, you can cut it anyway you like to suit your taste.

Home Screen Menu. On the phone, you press the menu button to get to settings, set wallpaper, add item etc. On the Bluetooth keyboard you press blue Fn+A, press the arrows where you want to go and press “enter”

Google Search. Press Alt+A or press green Fn+A

Call log. Press blue Fn+D

Put phone on sleep mode immediately or to wake from sleep mode. Press blue Fn+F or press green Fn+end

To reboot phone. Press together Ctrl+Alt+Delete

To bring up the symbols table. Press Alt THEN press space bar. Do not press both keys at the same time.

Documents to Go shortcuts. With Documents to Go open, you can perform the following operations:

Blue Fn+A	= open menu

Blue Fn+Esc	= save, discard or cancel document

Press shift twice	= all caps

To highlight text to cut, copy or edit etc, press shift while Pressing the arrow button in the desired portion to be highlighted.

Miscellaneous.

Camera – You can use the keyboard as a remote camera shutter for self portrait. Set the phone on a tripod etc. Go in front of the phone bringing your Bluetooth keyboard. Press enter to click the shutter.

On a webpage, pressing the spacebar scrolls down.

In Android Market home page, simply type what you're looking for; it automatically goes to the search bar.

Searching for other shortcuts is still a work in progress. Your contributions will be most welcome. I hope this contribution is helpful to you and others.