[maemo-developers] RFE: making tab-auto-complete action work on large on-screen keyboard

[From: Anuj Verma (Kevin)]

Hi, 

This is just to mark a basic discussion we had on #maemo last night. We 
discussed how badly tab-auto-complete is needed for apps like xchat while 
using large on-screen keyboard. 

It was suggested that adding another <Tab> key, might displace other keys 
and a sacrifice on keysize will be required. 

I proposed a quick neat way to do it, which I believe should work, if the 
enhancement idea is found any good and is worked upon that can be a 
default behaviour/cpapability of on-screen keyboard to work seamlessly 
with any Maemo(n800) app. 

What I suggested
----------------

Problem:
* Example app Xchat
* Tab-auto-complete is needed for usernames from userlist in a channel 
window focused

Solution: 
* On-screen keyboard loads the stack of userlist 
* User/operator starts to type a username initial characters
* On-screen keyboard compares from the stack, and offers auto-completion 
just like known words from dictionary or history
* Upon D-pad right-side press, username auto-completes.

Possible glitches:
* This looks to be simple, but can be a bit complex to manage application 
to application. 
* This can make on-screen keyboard consume more resources I believe also 
might put an impact on lookup, feedback time. 

Other example apps where this can be useful: 
* Xterm - command and file name/location autocomplete
* Future groupchat enhancements of Jabber/Telepathy 

Disclaimer: I am not a developer but I'll be glad to see this in code if 
et-all possible. 

Regards,
Kevin