The first public review I ever wrote for MTekk (or anyone else for that matter) was a comparative review of the various input methods available for the Pocket PC. Since then, I’ve reviewed a variety of other methods and newer versions but I’ve always had my favourites - PhatWare’s CalliGrapher and Full Screen Keyboard (FSK) from Spb Software House. I recently had the chance to review the most recent release of CalliGrapher so it seems appropriate that there should be a new version of FSK for me to review.

I have to admit that this review has sat in my device since before Christmas - needless to say I’ve been rather busy with a number of other projects and have been very slack in the review department, something I intend to redress over the next few weeks.

Let me first set the boundaries - I consider FSK and CalliGrapher to be suited to quite different situations. FSK is a tool ideally suited to the “text-ers” amongst us or for use in circumstances when a stylus or normal screen keyboard is not suitable, such as when only one hand is truly free or when standing in a packed train or bus; it is also well suited to those people endowed with banana-like fingers!

I’m not a “text-er”, I rarely use SMS and can’t abide the fiddley little keyboards, or thumb-pads, on modern phones. When I do have to use SMS, of course, I am usually fortunate enough to have my trusty XdaII and stylus and don’t have to mess about with keyboards and the delights of predictive text. Nonetheless there are occasions when I have to write notes or messages or even my reviews and simply cannot use the stylus, these are the times when FSK truly comes into its own.

Full Screen Keyboard is just that - a keyboard which occupies the entire screen of the PDA, providing the user with large enough keys to permit the them type with their fingers with reasonable accuracy. The new features of version 3 are as follows:

• Smart misprint correction
• Self learning algorithm
• VGA skins
• Portrait and Landscape modes
• WM2005 support

In its classic landscape mode, FSK shows a full querty keyboard with all letters and numbers, caps, two shifts, left and right, delete, function and enter keys, plus space and a few punctuation characters - in total, 48 keys. In between the function and delete keys at the top is the display area for the typed text.

The most visible of all of the version 3 changes has to be the Portrait mode. Before version 3, FSK only operated in landscape mode - you had to turn the PDA on its side to use the screen keyboard. This does of course make sense since the keyboard is naturally wider than it is tall when set out in a typical querty layout.

FSK is a skinable product which is used to great effect in enabling the keyboard to be rotated either left or night according to the user’s preference. Given the work required to enable the product to work with VGA and the newer square screens, it seems only natural that Spb would also include a new skin to enable the device the operate in portrait mode for those of us who don’t have WM2003SE or who prefer the tall orientation. In portrait mode, FSK simply keeps the same keyboard layout as for landscape but makes it tall and more narrow - seems fairly obvious but still needed the extra underlying effort.

To use FSK is a simple case of selecting it as the default input method. Whenever an input method is required a typical SIP keyboard appears which has an extra button of the top left - tapping this button displays the full screen keyboard. It is also possible to configure the SIP to automatically go straight into full screen mode which I actually prefer.

As the user types the on keyboard the entered text appears in the display area at the top. FSK has a new text correction mechanism which attempts to learn the user’s typical typographical errors and compensate for them by applying corrections on the fly, so to speak. Combined with the in-built predictive text mechanism which offers the most likely word completions (in the status window) as the user types, FSK does a rather good job of correcting the user’s typo’s.

Sounds and visual effects are available to confirm keystrokes, with both a key press indicator and/or cross hair type visual indicator available and sounds being available for left/right, shift, space and all other keys. In addition to the usual letters, numbers and punctuation there are a number of additional, more exotic characters available via the use of the function key. While some might criticise the lack of an Alt or Ctrl key in full screen mode, I think the folks at Spb have got the balance just about right and the occasioned nature of these keys makes them unnecessary on the main screen; they are available from the smaller popup keyboard.

Spb have once again crafted a useful and effective supplement to the Pocket PC - it is well written, stable and functional and the price is quite fair. Perhaps my only concern about this product is the fact that screens seem to be getting smaller all the time - the mini and Atom both have smaller screens than my XdaIIi and a number of the forthcoming devices are going to the 240x240 square screens. In addition, many devices are now coming out with integrated keyboards/thumbpads which negate the need for the on-screen ones. Personally I can't stand the smaller screens and hope there will always be the large ones available and if I wanted a real keyboard I wouldn't have got rid of my Psion 5.