Messages

1

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: I've made a small list of accessories and apps that improve Cosmo experience

« on: August 06, 2023, 06:24:04 pm »

The original site now seems to be down, but luckily it was captured on Wayback Machine

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: I've made a small list of accessories and apps that improve Cosmo experience

« on: August 05, 2023, 09:41:23 am »

I'm trying to work out how to get the Del key (or more specifically Shift-Del) to function as a Delete key in Android Open Office Writer. I can reallocate the key function through Tools->Customise->Keyboard  but in the list of allocatable functions under the Edit category there seems to be everything but a simple character delete function...

EDIT: in case anyone else is struggling with this, I have now implemented a workaround by recording a [ cursor-right; backspace ] macro then allocating this macro to Shift-Del.  Interestingly, LeftShift-Del on the Cosmo keyboard is represented in the list of Andropen Office key bindings as [Shift-Delete] whereas RightShift-Del is found as [Shift-Backspace] (obviously, there are no separate Delete and Backspace keys on the Cosmo, by default the key labelled Del acts as backspace) So I have allocated the macro to both [Shift-Delete] and [Shift-Backspace] so it works the same with both Cosmo Shift keys.

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Camera

« on: December 31, 2020, 10:38:34 pm »

Shuntcap,  Many thanks and a very prosperous New Year to you.  The work you have done on this to produce quality camera function on the Cosmo is fantastic.

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Camera

« on: March 06, 2020, 08:31:59 pm »

Correct, the binning is hard-coded in the kernel driver.

This would seem to be a major bug in the Mediatek driver, admittedly one which Planet could not have anticipated.

Supposedly, the point of the Samsung technology in these sensors is to bin pixels only in situations of low light, but the driver appears to bin pixels regardless of the level of illumination.  I can confirm that this does happen even when shooting in very good light levels.

As noted elsewhere, the images also appear over-processed, as if there has been an excessive application of noise reduction.

Overall it seems as though the driver is permanently fixed in a mode heavily optimised for 'low light' photography.

None of this matters too much for low-res viewing of a full image on a 'phone screen, where these issues are not visible, but they do cause problems when cropping to a small area of the image ('digital zoom') or viewing on a large hi-resolution screen.  Under these circumstances, for outdoor scenic photography in good light the results are awful when compared side-by-side to my battered 5 year-old 16MP Galaxy Note 4.

I find it hard to believe this is anything other than a driver problem, rather than a hardware problem with the sensor.

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Best app for large volume formatted text entry?

« on: February 01, 2020, 03:32:28 am »

In TextMaker I've just had a look and there is a similar option, but when you have created your new keyboard map the group you need to look for is Editing, and the commands are 'Line up', 'Line down', 'Character left', 'Character right'.  
Pretty ugly workaround eh...  But it works for me.

Works for me too.  Thanks ++++ for this tip

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Firmware update

« on: January 31, 2020, 12:46:35 pm »

Is it just for me, or has the latest update stopped the keyboard controls for the kb backlight from working?

Just checked. They are still working for me. Shift+Fn+N or B

Must have been my inability to hit the right keys in the dark stymieing me there.  However, I am reasonably sure Fn-space for voice assistant and Fn-enter for Phone are no longer working.

There is a setting for whether Fn-space activates the voice assistant in Settings>Cosmo settings...

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Firmware update

« on: January 31, 2020, 12:39:28 pm »

Is it just for me, or has the latest update stopped the keyboard controls for the kb backlight from working?

Just checked. They are still working for me. Shift+Fn+N or B

Must have been my inability to hit the right keys in the dark stymieing me there.  However, I am reasonably sure Fn-space for voice assistant and Fn-enter for Phone are no longer working.

There is a setting for whether Fn-space activates the voice assistant in Settings>Cosmo settings...

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Cosmo Communicator - Android / No vibration from screen touches

« on: January 31, 2020, 04:45:29 am »

Hi,

Not sure if I'm just missing an obscure setting, but I have lost haptic feedback from screen presses.

I have vibration turned on under Settings>Accessibility>[Interaction Controls]>Vibration>Touch Vibration>On
and also under Settings>Sound>Advanced>[Other sounds and vibrations]>Touch vibration>On

I am getting haptic feedback from all other functions such as keyboard and fingerprint sensor, but not for screen presses,

I have the latest firmware (V19) & CODI (1.1.1.13) updates successfully installed.

Any ideas?

My experience is that only the three buttons (triangle, square, dot) on the right vibrate -- not the entire display.

I guess this is standard Android behaviour then.  Thanks.

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Cosmo Communicator - Android / No vibration from screen touches

« on: January 30, 2020, 07:42:20 pm »

Hi,

Not sure if I'm just missing an obscure setting, but I have lost haptic feedback from screen presses.

I have vibration turned on under Settings>Accessibility>[Interaction Controls]>Vibration>Touch Vibration>On
and also under Settings>Sound>Advanced>[Other sounds and vibrations]>Touch vibration>On

I am getting haptic feedback from all other functions such as keyboard and fingerprint sensor, but not for screen presses,

I have the latest firmware (V19) & CODI (1.1.1.13) updates successfully installed.

Any ideas?

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Cosmo Communicator - Android / Vibrating physical keyboard

« on: January 30, 2020, 07:33:23 pm »

Settings -> Sound -> Advanced -> Touch vibration

Actually, that was the place I was looking and and couldn't find the setting. Turned out it's under "Planet keyboard" app, not part of the settings. Thanks.

It can also be found under Settings>System>Languages & Input>Virtual Keyboard>Planet Keyboard>Preferences

The vibration setting here (somewhat confusingly) works for both physical and on-screen keyboards

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Firmware update

« on: January 30, 2020, 02:41:10 am »

Maybe you're both right. While I know we're a bit OT here, after briefly checking that Google Maps and my compass app of choice from another phone seems to agree with the mentioned "GPS Status and Toolbox", I did some tests with the latter (which I soon bought). The compass moves and is not random, so the sensor IS on, but something is weird. If I calibrate the compass (and pitch and roll), holds the screen reasonably parallel to the ground and points the top of device roughly to where I know north is, the compass seems reasonably accurate and moves fairly swiftly, but the further I turn the top of the device away from North, the greater the error gets, and the slower the compass seems to move (yeah, weird). When I point roughly West, the heading slowly settles on around 330, not 270, so it's about 60 degrees off. When I point roughly East, I slowly get a heading near 30 instead of 90, so it's also about 60 degrees off. When I point South, the North compass really slowly finds its way to a heading near zero, with the North arrow pointing South... Would someone want to share more details on their results (the free version of  "GPS Status and Toolbox" will do fine), perhaps we should move this to another thread. Do notice that speakers and such can have fairly strong magnetic fields, so it's better to be a bit away from... well... everything, outdoors is probably best, but I found a spot in the hallway where an analogue compass and a city map agreed on North (yes, I know I'm capitalizing the cardinal directions wrong - to make them stand out a bit from the rest of my ramblings).

Thinking about this...  What orientation were you holding your Cosmo in when you tried this?  Was it in keyboard level, typing on flat surface position?  Was it in screen level, doing common Android things position?

What I wonder is where the Cosmo's sensors are on the device?  Some of them might be in the keyboard portion, some of them might be in the screen portion.  If the orientation sensor and magnetometer are in different portions and the sensor handling code doesn't correctly compensate for this things would go wrong.  Potential bug?

I have tried a number of compass apps, all seem to give similar results but do depend on displaying correctly in landscape mode and the keyboard being held level, which seems to be the location of the relevent sensors. Obviously, this is easier when the compass display also shows levelling information, ideally with a 'bubble level' dot or disc on the compass display.  The best I've found so far for this is Digital Compass by Axiomatic Inc, but doubtless there are many similar

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Cosmo Communicator - Android / How to insert characters with accent?

« on: January 29, 2020, 07:42:13 pm »

Ah, finally located it-

Settings>Languages & Input>Virtual Keyboard>Planet Keyboard>Preferences>Show alternative keys on longpress

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Cosmo Communicator - Android / How to insert characters with accent?

« on: January 28, 2020, 11:29:06 pm »

I still can't find this setting anywhere on my Cosmo, which seems however by default to have the longpress-for-accents enabled.

Please can someone talk me through how to turn this off, i.e. to longpress-for-repeat?

I have the latest firmware & CODI updates, (19 & 13 respectively) and a UK layout physical keyboard with UK and Japanese keyboard layout maps downloaded.

Thanks

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Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Very little activity on this board

« on: January 28, 2020, 10:32:46 pm »

All contributors have valid points IMHO.

None of the devices mentioned is guaranteed to survive a fall from height onto a hard surface- or other substantial trauma- without significant if not fatal damage.

That's equally true even for highly-engineered top-end smart-phones. Nevertheless some devices are inevitably by design more robust than others.

For hinged devices, repeated stressing of the hinge and its electrical connectors by opening and closing, particularly if unbalanced or forceful, or by flexing to-and-fro from walking, bending, squatting etc. when held in a tight pocket, may also eventually lead to failure.

It's also true that the likelihood of functional and cosmetic survival for all these devices can be prolonged by the use of a case.

But there's a trade-off.  The more protective the case, the less convenient it's likely to be in terms of portability and useability of the device.

As every use case is different, only an individual can decide where the sweet-spot lies for them between armour-plated protection and no case at all.  Or maybe varies, depending on circumstances.

Engineering the hinge mechanism naturally also involves trade-offs between robustness and other considerations including cost, opening mechanics and form-factor. Devices with the thickness of the Zaurus Cxxxx or Jornada 720 would for example be very difficult to market as a 'phone today.

Whether the engineers have made the right trade-offs for most use-cases only really becomes apparent some time after launch with feedback from experience of real-world use, whatever efforts are made to test robustness in the factory.  Recall the bendy iPhone as an example. Evidently the Apple engineers didn't think to jam prototypes in their jeans back pocket and flop down forcibly onto firm seats.

Planet have clearly decided that the hinge mechanism could benefit from being upgraded cf. the Gemini. Despite this, it being an inherent weakness of clamshell devices, no doubt some will fail sooner or later- as did some of the Zaurus and Jornadas.  How many and how soon is at this stage impossible to say- all we can do as individual owners is remember that these are not unbreakable devices and so look after and protect our own device as well as circumstances allow, or accept that ours might be one of the earlier ones to fail.

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Cosmo Communicator - Hardware / bad touchscreen sensitivity

« on: January 28, 2020, 02:58:10 pm »

For those wondering what normal touchscreen sensitivity is for the main Cosmo screen it should register a touch or scroll reliably at pretty much the lightest touch that your fingertip itself can feel, even through the protective film it ships with and including when free-standing on a desk or table.

If it's not doing this even after a factory reset it is probably a defective unit and should be returned to Planet for repair/replacement.


[Edit]  It's been pointed out on IGG forum that some Cosmos may ship with a thicker screen protection film that may need to be removed for full touch sensitivity. Mine works as described with the screen protector in place.