How-to: iPhone Keyboard Tips

[jesse_the_k]

The MacMost site offers bite-sized tech help for Apple users. Even though I’ve been using Apples since 1984, I always learn something there. Recently, Gary offered 36 ways to type more easily on the iPhone keyboard. Transcript and video at https://macmost.com/36-iphone-keyboard-tips.html

I learned three things that made me happy. Writing them down helps me remember, so here are the summaries:

Press & Hold Modifiers

The system keyboard offers two modifier keys — caps (up arrow) and numbers & punctuation (123). I already knew to double tap on either to lock in the corresponding keycaps. If I press caps once, then the next letter is capitalized. If I tap numbers once, I get the digits-and-punctuation keyboard.

• If I press and hold on caps, I turn on slide-to-type, with the first letter capitalized.
• If I press and hold on numbers, I can slide to get a single digit or punctuation character. Then when I let go, it’s back to the alphabetic keyboard.
• If I’ve double-tapped numbers to keep the digits-and-punctuation showing, that keycap turns into the extra punctuation (#+=) modifier. If I press and hold on that one, I can slide to get a single item from the extra punctuation keyboard.

Taming Autocorrect Dictionary

The system starts out inserting duck when you want to swear. Duck that! Use settings > keyboard > text replacement, and type the text you want left alone in the first "Phrase" box.

Fixing autocorrect on the fly

When autocorrect chooses the wrong answer, tap delete and the word-as-typed pops up in a bubble -- tap to replace.

As long as we’re replacing text

I make shortcuts for oft-used words. I avoid posting on my phone, but I do use my iPad, where the comma is always visible. So I use two commas to make my shortcuts distinctive. For example:

phrase <cut text="click for pic"> <a href='999'> <img src="999" alt="described in entry" width="80%" height="" border="10" align=""/></a></cut>

shortcut ,,pix

When I’m posting a photo I put the image URL on my clipboard. After ,,pix expands, I double tap 999 and paste in the link (and then I do it again). This code is slightly more mobile-friendly because it adjust the image size to 80% of screen width. Now you know another reason I always include explicit image descriptions in the body of my posts.

Do you have any tricks to make mobile Dreamwidth posting easier?