Emu48/Android - Keyboard feedback

[Marco Polo]

I use both real HP50 and emulated on Android phone (Honor 7x).
The emulator works great, but if compared to real calc the interaction with keyboard is really poor.
As a matter of fact user input on emulator is (for me) much slower and error-prone compared to real calc, mainly due to poor tactile feedback.
Same problem for HP48, partially mitigated by better keyboard layout.
Is there any way to improve Emu keyboard feedback?

[rlionspain]

Using Emu 48 for 4 years now on a couple of mobiles. My 48GX runs really great on it.
I agree with you that an actual keyboard is better than touchscreens but I would not blame the haptic feedback but touchscreens themselves. I've always found the vibration (25-30 ms) very useful to realize when I lost a character.
Do you find this poor tactile feedback in other apps in your mobile or just in Emu48?

[Marco Polo]

(04-30-2023 10:35 AM)rlionspain Wrote:  Using Emu 48 for 4 years now on a couple of mobiles. My 48GX runs really great on it.
I agree with you that an actual keyboard is better than touchscreens but I would not blame the haptic feedback but touchscreens themselves. I've always found the vibration (25-30 ms) very useful to realize when I lost a character.
Do you find this poor tactile feedback in other apps in your mobile or just in Emu48?

It is more a matter of finger size vs keys size.
In physical calc I feel the key under my finger before pressing, on touch screen it is impossible and I often press the wrong key

[John Keith]

The only thing that gives me problems on the phone is when I have to "hold down" a shift key while pressing another. It's awkward and the phone often interprets the action as an attempt to resize the screen.

I think this is an inherent problem with touch screen interfaces, not with EMU48 in particular. This is why many of us prefer physical calculators.

[Eric Rechlin]

Emu48 for Android is just too sensitive for the screen-resize feature. I accidentally hit it all the time too. Maybe Regis can make it less sensitive in a future release...

[Steve Simpkin]

(04-30-2023 09:45 PM)John Keith Wrote:  The only thing that gives me problems on the phone is when I have to "hold down" a shift key while pressing another. It's awkward and the phone often interprets the action as an attempt to resize the screen.

I think this is an inherent problem with touch screen interfaces, not with EMU48 in particular. This is why many of us prefer physical calculators.

Because of this, I usually turn “Allow Pinch to zoom” off in the EMU48 settings. This is for my tablet which is large enough to comfortably see the entire calculator without zooming.

Edit: Also turning on the options to hide the Navigation and Status bars makes the calculator larger on small screens.

[rlionspain]

(04-30-2023 09:45 PM)John Keith Wrote:  Because of this, I usually turn “Allow Pinch to zoom” off in the EMU48 settings.

Mee too; and "Fill screen" layout also seems avoid this kind of problems.

I'm really happy with this version of Emu. It works stunningly on my Pixel 6 with a beautiful and realistic picture. Thank you, Eric. ?

[Eric Rechlin]

(05-01-2023 06:42 AM)rlionspain Wrote:  I'm really happy with this version of Emu. It works stunningly on my Pixel 6 with a beautiful and realistic picture. Thank you, Eric. ?

I'm only a minor contributor. Regis did all the work for the Android port. The Windows version has been maintained by Christoph for close to 25 years. Initial development was Sebastien. Saturn+ enhancements were by Cyrille.

All I did was merge code to reconcile different code bases, fix a few minor bugs, add a few minor features, and make the KML/image skin and key setup.

[rlionspain]

(05-01-2023 06:03 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  [

I'm only a minor contributor.

I know, I know... just referring to the picture and kml file in my previous post.
I know well Emu48 story and I'm using it for Wndows since... I can't remember! Just these 4 years in Android.
I've even been able to thank Regis for his work for Android.
The 48 with Metakernel, Erable, Alg48 and a lot of other stuff is a daily tool for me at work for more than 20 years, and running it on modern hardware is wonderful (in spite of the lack of an actual keyboard)

[John Keith]

(05-01-2023 03:25 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Because of this, I usually turn “Allow Pinch to zoom” off in the EMU48 settings.

Thanks, that's a big help.