Notices

installed via app manager..

i cant understand how cani insert text inside an sms.. btw it looks good, finally thanks!!

Well done!

Only click text-field in conversation, note or every you want...Like you do for standard virtual keyboard...

Start it from icon show "old" interface and allows to change options (language for example)

EDIT: Added this answer to first post

Sorry, I didn't expressed well myself. A user was asking about why is the VK depending on FastSMS, and I tried to keep emphasis on the fact that it's a WIP and in the future it would improve by being a standalone package and FastSMS depending upon it.

No, sorry but it is impossible. FastSMS was written in Qt, virtual-keyboard must be written in gtk. This means that I have to rewrite all the code (really not little) in gtk and lose portability to other/future platform and I have to maintain two different projects and fight against different libs bugs

yep i understand..i did it

but how can i answer to an sms? i have to put everytime the number..when i want to answer to a friend, it could be nice if number is just there written.. (an improvement for the future)

Uhm...perhaps I wasn't so clear...If you want to answer to a message simply open the message normally (in conversation window I mean) and click on text-field like you do when you want use standard virtual keyboard...
Virtual keyboard will be opened without recipient fields (if all works fine) and you only need to insert the answer and then tap out of keyboard.
Your message will be displayed in text-field like you inserted via hardware keyboard

So you DON'T have to use the icon in main menu...

Question: Is FastSMS marked as a dependency of FastSMSEvo? I just glanced at the dependencies list for FastSMSEvo and didn't notice it, but I may very well be wrong about that, and just didn't see it.

@Minhaz: He'd have to recode both FastSMS and FastSMSEvo probably, to make that work. What I would have done is made FastSMSEvo stand-alone and then made FastSMS depend on and use FastSMSEvo. But I can understand why he went his route, since FastSMS was here first, so that was the natural progression coding-wise.

Some quick test results:
There is a slightly noticeable memory use difference. I use both the normal CPUMEM applet and my own python clone of it with five bars - cpumem applet shows bars at 30, 50, 70, and 90 % RAM used. Mine shows bars at 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100. Normally a new reboot puts both versions at two bars, implying memory use between 50-60 %. After launching FastSMS and letting it sit in the background [EDIT: Meaning, after I launched the VKB normally, and it loaded FastSMS in the background as is explained in the first post), my applet shows 3 bars, cpumem still shows 2 - implying 60-70 % memory used. Not an issue, and it could be the difference of 1-2 %, but just letting you know it's somewhat noticeable.

I also JUST realized that the red/white icon button was an eraser, and that was backspace. For a while I thought there was no backspace at all. That icon is prob'ly a gamble in terms of intuitiveness, but it works, and so long as you know what it is it's not a problem to use.

One thing I noticed (so far testing in Conversations only) is that if I auto-rotate conversations itself, it has a hard time rotating to portrait sometimes. The first time I auto-rotated Conversations and clicked on the text-box in portrait mode, the entire Conversations app flipped back to landscape, the FastSMS keyboard came up in landscape, then the entire thing auto-rotated to portrait then back to landscape... Or something like that. I then wiggled it a bit (landscape then portrait so that the system knew to flip again) and it went to portrait just fine. Testing it again for repeatability, however, I noticed that it launches in portrait mode from portrait mode Conversations just fine. It does, when you click out of the portrait VKB to enter text, go momentarily to landscape, exits the keyboard, and then Conversations rotates back to portrait. The text is entered just fine however.

I had one instance of text NOT being entered when clicking out of the VKB when in landscape, I haven't really been able to reproduce it since though.

I'll report back when I can with reports on how well it works in a bunch of other apps, but in the meantime I just want to say: this is wonderful. Suddenly the N900s versatility just skyrocketed tremendously on top of all the other great things about it.

@Menatlist: As always thank you for your feedback

Start from memory usage: FastSMS uses 6-7% of memory itself, but you have to consider that qtLibraries must be loaded so the total amount is 12-14% (depends on which language are you using). Consider that QtLibs are shared between different apps so they exists only once in memory (tools like Conky give the amount of memory with libs included).
There are some part of old implementation that could be removed freeing memory, but I have to manage people that perhaps want use fastsms standalone and not as vkb.

Icon: if someone wants draw a set of icon I will be happy to change all...They comes from different author and perhaps could be not so intuitive.

Some problems about autorotation happens when device is parallel to ground (for example over a table) this is because orientation is "unknown".

About non-commited text I've only experinced this in microB (like I said in first post) never in other place. Where you get this?

I figured out what makes it fail to enter text in Conversations (possibly applies elsewhere): If you already have text IN the text entry field BEFORE you open this vkb. When you launch it, it'll properly keep the text that's already there, but it'll fail to add the next text. (Doesn't matter if the already there text was entered with hardware keyboard, or by the same virtual one just a few seconds earlier.)

Just did preliminary X-Terminal test - vkb doesn't seem to want to enter text there. I actually DID get it to enter text in X-Term once, I just don't know how I did it/why it worked that one time.

To clarify: If I have "Test" typed in the Conversations - say, I use the stock conversations program to send a text message - and type "Test" (with virtual or hardware keyboard, doesn't matter which). Then I close the Virtual/Hardware Keyboard, and click on the text box there "Test" is already entered, to bring up the vkb again. Then I type "blah" so the whole text looks like "Testblah". When I exit the VKB this time, only "Test" remains.

- Edit -

The icons are fine, but I'll be happy to draw you a generic backspace arrow if you'd like.

As for taking care of the people who want to use FastSMS stand-alone, I agree. I'm just wondering if perhaps FastSMSEvo can be a dependency for stand-alone FastSMS (and then some of the necessary code would get moved to FastSMSEvo from FastSMS), and then people who install FastSMS (and thus FastSMSEvo) could have an option in the settings to use the FastSMS keyboard just system-wide or just for FastSMS (or these settings can be available in a Settings menu applet...). Either way though, I realize it's extra difficulty to do that. I think the way you have it right now is just fine.

Also, re: orientation - I know. I assure you I was keeping it very definitively portrait/landscape. None of the wierd flipping happened during flat 'unknown' orientations. (But like I said, the really weird flipping was a one-time thing near as I can tell, and the click-out-of-keyboard->everything-goes-landscape-until-keyboard-closes->goes-back-to-portrait thing is minor and isn't a problem.)