k9t9

Minimalist, Nokia-inspired T9 IME for Android feature phones with physical number pads.

Features

Predictive text entry for English language
Barebones punctuation (through the 1 key)
3 entry modes (cycled with pound key long press)
- Predictive
  - Single press pound key to shift to single uppercase or all caps
  - Long press zero for newline
- Letter entry
  - Single press pound key to shift case
  - Long press any key for its number
- Number entry
Recomposing previously-entered words

Installation

Install via ADB:

adb install <release>.apk

Set K9T9 as the active IME:

adb shell ime set com.shortendesign.k9keyboard/.K9InputMethodServiceImpl

On first run after install, K9T9 may take some time to load the word database and populate its data structures. During this time, the word input modes will not work.

Override Settings

Save a copy of k9t9.properties-example.

cp k9t9.properties-example ~/k9t9.properties

Update settings, such as key code mappings.

For example, to map Android key code 4 to the DELETE function:
```
key.DELETE=4
```
Copy the updated settings file to your device using adb

adb push ~/k9t9.properties /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.shortendesign.k9keyboard/files/k9t9.properties

You will need to restart the IME service for the settings to take effect (restarting your device may be the simplest way).

To remove the custom settings file:

adb shell rm /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.shortendesign.k9keyboard/files/k9t9.properties

Philosophy & Limitations

This IME was initially designed to replace an inferior predictive text engine on a basic Android feature phone. This phone (and I'm assuming others like it) does not run the Google Play store or services, and doesn't even support a UI for selecting a different IME, even if it were installed.

For this reason, I don't have plans to publish this app to the Google Play store. It is intended for those who know and care enough about such Android feature phones to use the Android SDK to set it up manually.

I have also not included any settings UI for the IME.

Removal

adb uninstall com.shortendesign.k9keyboard

danielshorten / k9t9