Meta-tap (Gesture Area + tap) and Copy/Paste 15
Two things that differentiate the hardware of webOS devices and that of all other mobile phones are the presence of both a physical keyboard and the Gesture Area. While the Gesture Area can be used to perform a Back Swipe, a Forward Swipe, or a variety of other gestures, it can also be used for keyboard shortcuts (called a Meta-tap). All you need to do is hold down one finger anywhere on the Gesture Area and then press the corresponding keyboard key for any given shortcut. And how do you know what the shortcuts are? Well, all you need to do is go into any Applica 
tion Menu by performing a downward-swipe from the top left corner of the screen and look for the Bulls-eye + Letter combinations.
The most common use of the Meta Tap is for Copy/Paste. All you need to do is highlight the text that you want (or use a Gesture + A to "Select All"), perform a Gesture + C to copy (a "Selection Copied" dashboard notification will appear), put your cursor where you want to paste, and then perform a Gesture + V to paste. And this is not constrained to just the app you are working in...this even works across apps!
15 Comments
I use this all the time!
Only thing is the gesture area is so far away from the keyboard. One good option could be double tapping brings up a right click menu?
I use two thumbs for meta-tap. It never occurred to me to use one. So the physical layout is just fine for me.
While placing a finger anywhere in the gesture area and selecting another key to initiate a Meta-tap is technically correct, it is important to note that placing a finger in the middle of the gesture area on a Pre Plus (where the LEDs are located) will minimize the app the moment the finger is lifted.
This frustrated the **** out of me until I realized all I had to do was place a finger on the far left or far right of the gesture area. FYI.
+infinity. Good tip to a tip. You ROCK!
FINALLY.com I was so trying to figure how to do this.. I keep thinking that lil circle was the orange button smh
use it all the time. Almost makes not miss a "mouse".
One Meta-tap that's not implemented but that I would LOVE to see in 2.0 is Gesture + Z for undo.
Also, THANK YOU Costephano for solving the minimized card problem for me! That's been driving me crazy, but had conceded to just dealing with it... until now! :D
+10000!!! Sometimes it's a negative thing that things automatically save in webOS.
Costephano, I have to second the thanks to you. I have a Sprint Pre and always used the button for Meta taps. The button causes the card to minimize. Just tried out touching to the side of the button and that worked also, without minimizing the card. Yay.
heehee... I thot this was covered in the first Pre tutorial...(on phone) - or didn't the AT&T device have that on board and/or don't the majority of (us) techies actually explore helpful stuff like that in addition to peeking at all the menus in the first two hrs with a new toy?
(snicker)
But, yeah, I sympathize with the Plus folks-- the hdwr design itself makes this even Less intuitive...
Another thank you to costephano ... I pretty much gave up on using this feature because of the minimizing cards issue.
thanks!!! i've had my pre for about a month now and could not figure out what the "bulls eye" meant. i just had to go into the menu to copy cut or paste.
On the Pre Plus, if you do put your finger in the middle of the gesture area, you can finish with a foward swipe. The forward swipe tends not do anything in a lot of apps.
Has anyone tried this on a Touchpad? I haven't see any meta-tap options on any of the apps on the TP.