Mobile text input requires easy copy'n'paste interaction, reliable cursor positioning and the ability to edit (or fix) previously written text. For Asian markets, computer-assisted input of composed characters is of paramount importance. A virtual keyboard alone cannot solve that. For input methods to work, sophisticated platform and toolkit integration is required. The current general-purpose APIs that come with their respective input method modules in UI toolkits such as GTK+ and Qt are not sufficiently equipped for these tasks. Although the situation within the toolkits is slowly improving, Maliit - a flexible and cross-platform input method framework - can further narrow this functionality gap. This talk will analyze problems of mobile text input and show how they were solved on Nokia's N9.
Speakers: Michael Hasselman