Palm Pre Keyboard Tricks 31
There are many hidden keyboard shortcuts and tricks on the Palm Pre. We've already discussed many of them here at PreCentral.net, but here's a list of most of the currently-known keyboard combinations for the Pre. New to these blog pages: the ability to enter text in bold and italic and also to view developer information on open cards.
Before we get to them, though, we will note that the Palm Pre Tips and Tricks PDF from forum member milominderbinde has seen plenty of updates and now includes over 200 tips and tricks! If you haven't yet, you absolutely must register as a member and download this amazing guide!
On to the keyboard shortcuts!
Key Combos
- Screenshot: Orange + Shift + P. There will be no indicator that your screenshot succeeded, but check out the Screencapture gallery in your Photo app to see them
- Open Card Information: Orange + Sym + i. You will see information about the open card, including how many images the app is using, how many DOM nodes, Render nodes, and Render layers it's calling. Potentially useful to web developers learning how to program for the webOS.
- Soft-Reset: Orange + Sym + R. Will automatically reset your Palm Pre.
Bold and Italic
New to us - in certain apps you can enter text as Bold and Italic. It's a little buggy yet, but we expect that we'll see these as official features as soon as Palm is able to work out the kinks.
- Bold text: Sym + B. This will only work in apps that can accept rich text. So it works in email but not in memos, for example. You can hold this combo down before you start typing or highlight your text and then hit it to make your text bold.
- Italic Text: Sym + i. As with bold, only works in certain apps. Also note that the Pre will try to enter international "i" characters
Longer keyboard tricks
- Landscape email: on the mailbox listing view, (the top level), type RocknRollHax (hold down shift + letter for the caps). This will allow you to rotate into landscape mode. Resets after you close the card.
- Developer Mode: Type upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart. This will allow you to turn on Developer Mode so you can hack away at your Pre.
Other Keyboard Tricks
- Advanced Calculator functions: Hit the spacebar to toggle calculator functions: M-, Percent, Square Root, and +/-
- Open a link in a new browser card: Hold down Orange + Space and tap a link.
- Take a photo: You can hit the spacebar to take a picture in the Camera app.
- Delete an app: Orange + Tap
- Select text: hold down Shift then slide your finger left, right, up, or down to move the cursor. Only works in editable text fields
- Move the cursor: hold down Orange and slide your finger left, right, up, or down to position the cursor more accurately than tapping.
...There are many many other tricks not involving the keyboard like getting a menu in landscape mode, holding down your finger in the gesture area for copy and paste, and more. It's all in the Tips & Tricks PDF.
Anything keyboard-specific we missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll update the post!
Thanks to everybody in the forums for finding all these great tricks, especially milominderbinde. Thanks to Eric for the heads-up on the card info trick!
31 Comments
Just fyi Dieter, you added an extra "down" to the Konami/Developer Mode Code. :) otherwise these are some really great tips!
gah! I am an error machine lately! fixed and thanks!
Critically this post training conversation should result in the next steps to the person's development and also how the manager is going to support the sustaining of the skills learned on the programme or course.adult high school diploma
homeschool | homeschool curriculum | online ged |
Now let's hope we get some real keyboard shortcuts, particularly in email - come on Palm - you can do it!
1. Select all messsages
2. Mark as read
3. Find....
4. Got to first unread message
I love that circle on the right that shows how many messages are unread - now how bout some handlers for it - like finding them easily or marking them read.
and PLEASE an option to HIDE READ MESSAGES!
Then like on a blackberry "T" to go to the top of the inbox, "B" to go to the bottom of the inbox, "U" to the first unread message - let's get this PRE to rock and really start giving some competition to the other devices on the market.
And open next unread after delete.
Flipping the "silence" switch will also bring up the web menu in landscape.
Also, if you hold down the symbol button and press certain letters, you'll get relevant options. For example if you hold sym and press e you get to select e with various accent/language marks. Clicking the letter multiple times cycles through the options.
Holding shift or sym and pressing backspace deletes an entire word.
In email, hitting shift-enter acts like tab, moving you from To: to Subject: to Body: in a cycle
Not a keyboard shortcut, but I just noticed the edit menu in email gives you the option to do bold, italics, underline, and change the font color. And here I thought it was always just cut, copy, and paste! It looks like color works different than b, I, or u: you have to select the text then go pick the color you want.
Dieter.
What a coincidence! I was working this morning on a new thread, One-Key shortcuts:
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/190459-one-key-shortcuts.html
In a way, I guess I always knew about them but never thought about how cool they are. Even now I have three pages, top and bottom in my Launcher for effectively 6 pages.
With the one-key shortcut you are never more than two taps away from any of your apps.
- Craig (milominderbinde)
1fps Video Camera
Hold down the Space bar when taking a photo and it will continue to take a photo roughly every one second.
http://precentral.net/diy-stop-motion-video-pre
Here's a trick!
(1) Open the web browser, go to a web page with form fields, and click on a form field.
(2) Press the symbol button on the keyboard.
(3) Select a symbol from the dialog that pops up (e.g. [ or ] or )
Voila! Absolutely nothing happens. We're at 1.0.4 and this still hasn't been fixed. You can't use wikis on the Pre.
I didn't see it mentioned, maybe it's obvious, but to cut/copy/paste you touch the gesture area and hit x/c/v.
Maybe they should make bold and italics the same way - genture + b and gesture + i.
I wholeheartedly agree. The gesture area shortcuts are SO much better than option/symbol/shift combos. Also, it would remove the issue with getting an unintentional accented "i" when you switch to italics.
There are so many short cuts that would work like that:
of course italics/bold/underline, but what about
a: select all
z: undo
f: find (not like universal search, inside a webpage or document)
h: go to the top of a page (home). Could also use gesture area plus an down swipe to scroll all the way up
e: go to the bottom of a page (end) or up swipe(see above)
Gesture area + tap a link could be the Save As: option or even a right-click that gives you various options.
How in the heck do you undo the open card information. Look at the top of this page it I enabled it and now it's always there it's annoying!
do the key combination again
Thank you to the author of the PDF.... Very helpful
How do I delete sms messages?
How do we delete these spam messages? (viagra in woman?)
just slide it and a delete button appears.
Hi Sir, I am trying to figure out following, after entering a phone number how do I add an extention that either can be touched or goes automatically. On my other phones you could do # for 2 seconds delay and or P for pause. I am stumped. Thanks in advance
When will we be able to change email text font? I have arial 9 for my signature and verdana 12 for text. I cant even use this for work...I'll get fired !
??? ???????? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ???????? ???????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ?? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???????? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??????? ??????? ??? ???????? ?? ?? ???? ??? ?? ????? ??? ? ???? ???? ?? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ??????? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?? ????
I love that circle on the right that shows how many messages are unread - now how bout some handlers for it - like finding them easily or marking them read.
and PLEASE an option to HIDE READ MESSAGES!
Then like on a blackberry "T" to go to the top of the inbox, "B" to go to the bottom of the inbox, "U" to the first unread message - let's get this PRE to rock and really start giving some competition to the other devices on the market.
????? ????? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??? - ????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ????? ????? - ????? ????? ????? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ???????? ??????? ?? ????? ??? ???? - ??????? ??????? ??? ?????? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ????? - ????? ????? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ? ????? ?????? - ????? ????? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ????? ???????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ????? ??? ??? ?????? - ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ??? - ???? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? - ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ????? ???
And here I thought it was always just cut, copy, and paste! It looks like color works different than b, I, or u: you have to select the text then go pick the color you want. online ged | online homeschooling
This saved me a little bit of grief when our puppy chewed on my Pre, cracking the screen and breaking the digitizer. I was able to backup/restore a tiny bit of my data (thanks to a Palm employee on the palm.com forums for the hint).
"You can access the USB portion of the drive by hooking the phone up to the PC via the USB cable and pressing Opt+Sym+U on the keyboard. This will automatically put the phone into USB mode, Dev mode and command line access are not required."
>>>>>>>
I just want an update or download or an app like the app for the droid called handcent sms for my palm pre that has better , bigger and bolder and many to choose from - FONT OPTIONS , COLORS / DISPLAY SETTINGS , AND TOOLS. One that will keep it the way I like it and stay that way unless I choose to change it. I don't want to have to do key tricks every time on my phone to change the font to be bigger and bolder font or hold down keys to get it to do stupid tricks , that is a waste of my busy and hectic life . I don't have time for that kind of crap! I want something that stays put when I set it to my preference. Why can't the palm pre just be like other cell phones that have font options / colors and display settings and tools ?
Why does it have to be one of the most expensive phones on the market but yet be without what we value , want and need the most out of a cell phone. Why does it have to be so difficult and not simple like it use to be in the good old days.
All my friends make fun and laugh at my palm pre because it has such a big screen but yet has this tiny and hard to read font that has no font settings or options . They show off their Blackberries and Nokia's and LG's and other phones that have all kinds of .... font / display / color settings / options and tools and yet they have small screens on their phones . They also make fun of my tiny keys and tiny keyboard on my palm pre. They keep asking me when I am going to trade in my dumb phone for a smart phone like theirs.
And to be honest that day is almost here where I will sell or trade in my palm pre for a less expensive but better cell phone like my friends have .... One with so many more options / settings / tools to choose from on a cell phone.
Unless someone so brilliant comes along and creates a free download/ update or app that will make my palm pre so much better and easy to read . That person would be my PALM PRE HERO and that would keep my PALM PRE and I Together Forever....... I know there is a HERO out there in the Palm Pre FONT/DISPLAY World Somewhere ....... Does anyone know where I can find him ????