Spb Full Screen Keyboard SD Card Patch Released

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://softspb.com/products/fsk/sdcard.html' target='_blank'>http://softspb.com/products/fsk/sdcard.html</a><br /><br /></div>PPCPE owners, rejoice! The Spb folks tracked down a DLL loading problem in the Pocket PC operating system and have developed a workaround that should finally solve your problem. You must first have v1.4 installed; then, download this patch and install it from the desktop.

[smittyofdhs]

REJOICE-REJOICE-REJOICE!

I'm sure the support staff and Vassili will be glad not to here me bitch about this fix anymore.... This is the one app that I couldn't use when I purchased my PPCPE and it's one I used the most on my Ipaq. Needless to say I've been bugging the hell out of Vassili and the support staff for some time now, and even helped beta test some of the solutions.

I'm so glad to see this finally resolved...thanks SPB!

[kalex]

when u switch from full screen keyboard to regular keyboard, regular keyboard appears on top and its cut off. anybody else have this problem or just me?

[anthonymoody]

HEY! When I first saw this I thought WHOOPIE and FINALLY, all at once! But now that I installed the patch, its works WAY WORSE than before!

1) I get the same problem as kalex...when you switch from the FSK to the regular keyboard, the regular keyboard is at the top of the screen and cut off. You can fix this by closing the keyboard and reopening it, but still, this is a big flaw IMO.

2) Even worse, when I tap the keyboard key in FSK to go back to the regular app, half the time it doesnt 'carry' the text over...just the first letter! ARGH!!! This is an even bigger problem than #1

3) Finally and perhaps worst of all, is that the thing STILL has the same problem as before: if you do a soft reset with an SD card in the slot, FSK WILL NOT LOAD OR RUN. You have to remove the card, soft reset, then reinsert the card...THEN it will work. Just like BEFORE I installed the patch.

Jeez guys. For this long a wait you'd think the thing would actually work at least as well as before. It's worse now, and not by just a little.

TM

[anthonymoody]

Hmm...well, I just tried using it from more apps, and problem #2 seems to only happen in the calendar. In Word and Inbox (the 2 most important for me) it carries the full text over, no problem. Now, if only the fix actually fixed #1 and #3...

TM

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks for the feedback Anthony - we'll look into it ASAP. Everyone is asleep right now in Russia, but when they wake up, they'll see my email. :-) From what I understand the patch was tested quite heavily, and we used a few external people for testing to make sure it was compatible. Ultimately most of the problems stem from a flaw in the OS that we're trying to work around...it's frustrating. :? I'm sorry for your troubles, and we'll see what we can do to get them fixed.

Jason Dunn
VP Marketing
Spb Software House

[yawanag]

Count me in with the rest. I, too, have waited and emailed and begged for a Fix. :mrgreen:

When I installed, it seemed to work fine for a brief moment.

1) I get the same problem as kalex...when you switch from the FSK to the regular keyboard, the regular keyboard is at the top of the screen and cut off. You can fix this by closing the keyboard and reopening it, but still, this is a big flaw IMO.

3) Finally and perhaps worst of all, is that the thing STILL has the same problem as before: if you do a soft reset with an SD card in the slot, FSK WILL NOT LOAD OR RUN. You have to remove the card, soft reset, then reinsert the card...THEN it will work. Just like BEFORE I installed the patch.

It was difficult to fully uninstall it from showing in the list of keyboards. Now that I have I don't know if I want to bother again.

[anthonymoody]

THanks Jason! Well I for one definitely want this app to work and work well, so please do continue the efforts.

Thanks, keep us posted.
TM

[k_kirk]

Count me in too. I really want it to work as I'm 'input-challenged' otherwise. Not repeating the issues raised by others that I also have here's an additional bug that I'm observing even after the patch:

Occasionally the area near the top of XDA with the time and signal strength etc (I'll call it the taskbar) will show superimposed on FSK. When this happens you can't press the letters overlapped by the taskbar and you can't see the part of FSK display that's obscured. Additionally when I hit the little keyboard button that send FSK away I enter a vicious cycle where FSK just comes back again. Only way out is resetting the XDA.

[anthonymoody]

k_kirk - I noticed the same 2 problems you did. For me, the top bar sometimes shows over the keyboard, but only if you press the hard buttons for calendar, address book, etc.
I also got the cycle you were talking about. You can usually escape it by pressing where the little arrow would be next to the picture of the keyboard. You need the stylus to get in there though, kind of obviating the usefulness of a finger keyboard (i.e. b/c you have to pick up the stylus when you're done typing). Hopefully this will be fixed too. That said, this problem was more in calendar than in word or inbox, at least for me.

TM

[david291]

What is this OS flaw that you speak of? Please be as technical as you need to describe it, or give links if there are any.

-a curious programmer

[Janak Parekh]

If you follow the link to the Spb page, there is a link to an MSDN article (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dncenet/html/advmemmgmt.asp) which explains the DLL loading problem in great detail.

I love this quote from the article: "All of the solutions discussed for solving the DLL load problem on the Pocket PC 2002 are hacks of one way or another. None are elegant, nor that maintainable. However, these are the solutions that developers are using to develop their products. Future releases of the Pocket PC should solve this problem, but for developers working on Pocket PC 2002 products, improvisation is the key."

--janak

[razor]

:cry: Ditto, disappointed to find the problems are still there.
I have an iPAQ h5455.

[vassiliphilippov]

About this patch:

it helps in most cases but not in 100% of cases. We know that and we are sorry about that. But it is the best we can do without complete programm redesign. It is not a problem in Spb code but a known problem of Pocket PC and we hope it will be fixed in the next version of Pocket PC because it is affects all third-party input methods.

This patch does not change Spb Full Screen Keyboard code but only changes the DLL loading order so it cannot be a reason for any problem.

We continue working on this problem.

Vassili Philippov
CTO
Spb Software House

[razor]

But Vassili, the program I bought.... doesn't work! :cry: :(

[Jason Dunn]

But Vassili, the program I bought.... doesn't work! :cry: :(

But it works for me and many others. I'm not discounting the problem you're having, we're going to keep working at it, but it's not as though this program simply doesn't work on the Pocket PC. That's what makes this bug so frustrating and difficult to track down - it works for the majority of people, but not for everyone. Spb used 20 beta testers for this latest patch, so we were confident that we nailed it.

If you're up for it, hard reset your device, install FSK, and see if it works as you expect it to. If it does, that means there's another piece of software you have that's having a bad interaction with our program. Unfortunately, there are so many possible combinations of software and hardware that it's almost impossible to release a 100% perfect release of this software as long as this flaw exists in the Pocket PC operating system.

That said, we're working on a new approach to doing Spb Full Screen Keyboard, and it's looking promising.

Jason Dunn
VP Marketing
Spb Software House

[k_kirk]

Maybe people having these problems should be the beta testers at next round. I for one would volunteer if it means this great product gets better.

By the way, I agree with razor. Blaming the issue on MS does not solve anything. I still don't see a disclaimer about this issue on websites selling this product and definitely there were none on Handango when I bought my copy...

I did try the hard reset test to no success. IMHO, the reset without SD inserted routine is ok. The bigger issue is the functionality impairment I describe ealier in this thread. Not sure if that is related to the MS dll loading order problem.

Thanks in advance for all the hardwork SPB is putting into this problem.

[k_kirk]

anthonymoody - thanks for your suggestions. I will try. Problem manifests itself when I am typing replies to SMS messages on my XDA and when I goto Contacts app to pick up phone numbers to SMS.

[bjchantry]

I finally decidede to try this on my Phone Edition device and have run into a problem that perhaps someone can help me with. I use Agenda Fusion and it appears these two are not compatible. The Full Screen Keyboard works for email and SMS etc. but when I try to use it in Agenda Fusion I get an error that the "create a new contact" is not supported so the FSK won't open to avoid a system crash. Only problem is I am trying to open and edit an appointment, nothing to do with a contact. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for the help, I ca't believe I am the only person using AF and FSK.

[anthonymoody]

But Vassili, the program I bought.... doesn't work! :cry: :(

Spb used 20 beta testers for this latest patch, so we were confident that we nailed it.

If you're up for it, hard reset your device,

That said, we're working on a new approach to doing Spb Full Screen Keyboard, and it's looking promising.



Jason,
I'd be happy to be a beta tester going forward, since I'm one anyway ;)
I'm not up for hard resetting my device though, too much of a PITA, sorry! Glad to hear about the new method, hope it's out soon and works perfectly - we NEED this app!

BTW maybe the recently leaked PPCPE 2003 will work better in this regard?

TM