How do you dial 1-800-FLOWERS?
Say you’re a business that sells flowers over the phone. And say that, while picking a phone number for your business, you’ve got the choice between 1-800-356-9377 and 1-800-444-4444. Which do you pick? You’d pick the first one, because, while 7 seemingly random digits are hard to remember, the fact that they spell “FLOWERS” isn’t. Unfortunately, on some of the more prominent Windows Mobile devices, it’s pretty hard to dial 1-800-FLOWERS. This entry will attempt to explain why.
What are these letters for anyway?
As all of you are undoubtedly aware, most of the keys that you use to dial a phone have letters on them. Ever wonder why? If you’re a product of today’s world, where teenagers can T9 at 20 words a minute, you’ve probably just assumed those letters are there so you can text your friends. Have you ever wondered, though, why the 7 and 9 buttons have four letters each while the others have three? The answer is that the original intent of these letters wasn’t writing text. On old style phones (for you youngsters, these were boxes that plugged into a wall and couldn’t be carried around with you) there’s no Q nor Z. So 7 and 9 have three letters, like the rest of the keys.
When phones were first introduced, the phone company assumed that people wouldn’t be able to remember seven digits. So they stuck letters on the phone and published phone numbers as a combination of letters and numbers. You didn’t remember “282-5122.” Instead you remembered “AV2-5122.” I’m not making this up. That was my dad’s business number when I was growing up. (He’s retired now. Don’t bother calling.) I assume people eventually figured out how to remember seven digits, though, because this practice eventually fell out of use.
(Edit: It turns out that I'm not old enough to understand how this really started. I came in late in the convoluted history, and it had already taken some weird turns before my time. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names if you really want to understand how this came about.)
Enter the flower
Even though people eventually stopped publishing phone numbers with two letters, marketers quickly caught on to the potential benefits of those letters. Numbers like "1-800-FLOWERS" arrived immediately thereafter. I don’t know exactly when these sorts of personalized phone numbers started showing up, but they’ve been around for at least 30 years. This is probably why none of them have either a Q or a Z in their name. You had to be able to type them on of those old style phones that don’t have those letters.
I wouldn’t say that these sorts of numbers have ever been common. No business directory I’ve ever seen has had even 5% of their numbers this way. But they’ve always been around and still are today, even though now URLs are more important than phone numbers. I imagine they’ll be around forever.
So, if this personalized phone number concept has been around for decades and probably will be around for decades to come, how could Windows Mobile make it not work?
Exit the flower, enter the QWERTY Smartphone
First, let me say that “the 1-800-FLOWERS problem” is limited to a certain class of Windows Mobile Smartphones. All PocketPC Phones and all 12 key Smartphones can dial 1-800-FLOWERS just fine. It’s QWERTY Smartphones like the Moto Q, the Samsung BlackJack, and the T-Mobile Dash that have difficulty. We’re absolutely aware of the issue. We’ve been discussing it since the day Moto showed us their first sketches of the Q, and we’ve been working on various solutions. But we don’t have anything for you yet.
The trouble is, there are two features vying for use of the buttons, and 1-800-FLOWERS is the less important of them. Now, long time readers are probably rolling their eyes and saying, “Here’s Mike complaining about development resources and feature priorities again,” but that’s not my excuse this time. This isn’t a matter of us not having time to do both features. This is a problem of the two features actively conflicting with each other.
The feature that’s beating out 1-800-FLOWERS is the ability to easily dial all other phone numbers. You see, QWERTY Smartphones don’t have dedicated number keys. All the buttons on their keyboards are letters, and you need to hold the ALT key to get numbers. Imagine how much it would suck, though, if you needed to hold the ALT key just to dial a phone number. These are phones after all. It’s got to be easy to dial numbers on them.
My solution for this (yes, this is something you can actually blame me for) was to have a table that described which letters were also numbers. The Dash, for instance, has a 1 on the W key, a 2 on the E key, a 3 on the R key, etc. So the Dash has a place in its registry that says that W is also 1, E is also 2, etc. This table is in the registry because different OEMs put their numbers in different places on the keyboard. None of this needs to concern you, however, because we made our OS be the guy who understands the table and translates it for apps.
When an app that expects a number gets a letter instead, it asks the OS if there are any other keys associated with that letter. The OS looks in the table and responds appropriately. For instance, when a Dash user is trying to dial “5551212” the dialer actually sees “dddwewe.” When it sees the “d,” it says, “That doesn’t make any sense. OS, could this ‘d’ be anything else?” The OS responds, “Sure, the user might think he’s dialing a 5.” To which the dialer says, “Aha! That I can use.”
So, what’s the problem?
(All my examples are on the Dash because I have one in front of me. But the general concept is true on all Smartphones that don’t have dedicated number keys.) The problem happens when I try to dial the “F” in 1-800-FLOWERS. On the Dash, the F is the key that has a 6 on it. So, when you’re in the dialer and you hit the F, the table will translate it to 6. However, to do 1-800-FLOWERS correctly, the F had better send a 3. We could conceivably send both for F. The dialer could say, “I got an F and that doesn’t make sense. Could this be a number instead?” and the OS could say, “Yes, it might be a 6, or it might be a 3.” But how would the dialer figure out which you meant to type? Are you typing 1-800-FLOWERS or are you typing 1-800-678-9012?
In the end, the problem is that the ability to dial numbers without holding the ALT key gets in the way of dialing 1-800-FLOWERS. It’s our belief that people dial normal numbers with their phones more often than they dial personalized numbers like 1-800-FLOWERS. I’m sure I’ll get at least two comments that say, “You’re a bunch of idiots. All my friends and I ever dial are personalized numbers. Windows Mobile is doomed! ” But I suspect that most of you will agree that, if you have to choose one or the other, normal numbers are more important than personalized ones.
What can a user do?
If you find that there are only a few personalized numbers that you need to call frequently, you can add them to your contacts and let SmartDial find them for you. This is my personal solution, because I almost never need to call these sorts of numbers.
In the end, though, the real problem is that there isn’t room to stick a “DEF” on the tiny little key that already has an R and a 3 on it. If you had a way to see that DEF goes with 3, you’d be able to dial the personalized number. The lowest tech, simplest solution to that is also the ugliest. You could get a little sticker that says, “2-ABC, 3-DEF, 4-GHI” etc and stick in on the back of your phone. A bit higher tech would be to use your phone’s camera to take a picture of a phone that has the letters on the keys and bring that picture up when you’re faced with dialing a personalized number. (I know you’re laughing at me now. I can hear it.)
The coolest user solution would be to have the picture show up on the screen while you’re dialing. Some clever users on the various Q, Dash, and Blackjack sites have discovered exactly how to do that. They’ve realized that the picture in the dialer that shows the Mobile Operator’s name is changeable in the registry. So they have replaced that image with one that shows which letters go with which keys (2-ABC, 3-DEF, etc). My Mobile Operator partners wouldn’t appreciate my telling you how to remove their branding, so I’m not going to. But that solution exists if you’re willing to go digging for it.
Is it ever going to get better?
As always, I can’t announce features. But I will say that the Q is one of the hottest selling Windows Mobile devices ever. And the general category of QWERTY Smartphones is doing very well. While we don’t consider the ability to dial personalized phone numbers the most important feature on a phone, we do recognize that it’s an important feature. So, while I can’t announce features or dates or even promise that anything will be done, I can say that we want to provide a real solution that’s better than the user ones above.
Mike Calligaro
Comments
Anonymous
February 06, 2007
Nice article with some good history. However, I'm not sure why this is such a problem. As you say, this type of number (e.g. 1-800-FLOWERS) is not super common. In the rare occurences I need to dial a number like this, the soft dial pad on my Treo 700w has all the letters on the button graphics, so I'll use that. I can get to the soft pad in two one-handed clicks, which is perfectly acceptable in this relatively rare situations. Sure, this doesn't help for "texting" someone, but I have a QWERTY keyboard for that, which is a heck of a lot more friendly! James.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
Actually the history of the letter originated with telephone exchanges that had names, the AV you mention would likely have started as avondale or some such name then when dialing phones started became AV but you originally asked an operator to connect you to a phone using the name and then 5 numbers.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
i have an idea. how about getting manufacturers to spec thumb-boards with an additional row of dedicated numeric keys. the sidekick has that, and it doesn't just make dialing 1-800-flowers easier, it makes all numeric entry easier.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
Sounds like a solutions for a touch screen. Oh right, those aren't in vogue for Windows Mobile anymore. Actually what would probably work the best is another modifier key (like Alt above, or even a menu option, since its not that common) which tells the dialer app that you are dialing a personalized number, and then just write the name out. Then the dialer app would just have to translate flowers into 356-9377.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
+1 for using the touchpad on the 700w to dial these numbers.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
This isn't just an issue with "personalized" phone numbers...what about corporate phone directories, which are pretty common? Berlind complained about this in his Motorola Q series in this post (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3511). This extended review, while full of personal rants, has numerous valid points about the Q. His whole series should be required reading for the Q team and the Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition team. And while we are discussing rants, you should remind the WMDC team that the Q is "one of the hottest selling Windows Mobile devices ever," as they somehow see fit to leave the Bluetooth sync capability out until months from now.Anonymous
February 06, 2007
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February 06, 2007
How difficult would it be to add a voice-recognition dialer to the platform? You say "Phone, Dial this number", then read off the number you want. A really clever recognizer would translate "Flowers" into the right digits. Make the software work with 8 bits too so the Bluetooth Headsets will be able to use it. RyanAnonymous
February 06, 2007
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February 06, 2007
You and your friends are not idiots, Mike. That's what you wanted to hear, right? :) I found out that the smart minimizing concept really works. I use my PDA for weeks now without any hiccups. Some questions someone might be able to answer: I cannot send text messages to the number *130#. Because WM first thinks it's an email address and then finds out that the address is not a valid email address... How can I send text messages to *130# ? Why does the PDA not sync with the Contacts application in Vista? Why does it ONLY sync with Outlook? That's annoying... I want to listen music on my PDA. When a call arrives I want it to vibrate. And no applications should play any bings, clicks, doings or anything like that. Is that even possible?Anonymous
February 07, 2007
Mike, as always I appreciate your articles and writing. It reminds me of the good ole days of Bluetooth. I'm developing an app and have the opposite issue on the 'Q'. The application doesn't have any input boxes, but I want to somehow trap the user's numeric input. I'm showing a traffic map with incident flags that are numbered. On a regular SP the numbers are easily trapped and the incident shows when a user presses '1', '2', etc. However, on the 'Q' the keyboard is always in non-numeric mode. Is there anyway to put the device in 'ALT' mode to always enter number values while in our app? If that isn't possible, is the registry table that maps keyboard letters to numbers accessible to developers? Thanks! I'll contact you with the app (you'll enjoy it) when we're done. JoeOllisAnonymous
February 07, 2007
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February 07, 2007
Mike Calligaro puts up a fairly long blog posting on what seems to be a fairly short topic - the fact that YATQKMS (Yet Another Thin, QWERTY Keyboard Windows Mobile Smartphone) devices like the Q or the Dash don't have those "ABC", "DEF" etc. buttonsAnonymous
February 08, 2007
I use a product called DialLetters on my Q. It adds virtual phone pad to my dial screens with the ABC DEF... to use as reference.Anonymous
February 08, 2007
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February 08, 2007
Mike, please explain how to either access the translation table or ask the OS to do the translation as you say the phone dialer does. I need to get the numbers when the user is pushing the letter keys, just like the phone dialer. Currently, we translate using a table in the application but a separate table is needed for every model supported, which is not very elegant and creates maintenance work that shouldn't be required. Thanks.Anonymous
February 08, 2007
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February 09, 2007
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February 11, 2007
Why not have the phone-entry textboxes act like the reverse of standard textboxes, where the default is numeric entry only, and you have to hold down ALT to enter letters. Letters then would be translated into 2-ABC, 3-DEF, etc. Changing the default behavior in this case isn't too bad since its a direct opposite and has a valid context (phone entry areas). This would only be the behavior on mixed keyboards like on the Q or the Dash. Full keyboard devices like the HTC Universal or TyTn wouldn't need the support since they have a dedicated number row.Anonymous
February 11, 2007
Joe, See this article: http://www.smartphonedn.com/qa/ime_enable.htmlAnonymous
February 12, 2007
This is how we do it on the Q for Sprint. Though I have to admit, we shouldn't have to do it on our own like this, nice to know as always MS is listening at least! http://ppcgeeks.com/workaround-for-dialing-letters-on-the-q-t2382.html Now can we CDMA Moto Q users get WM6 already ;-)Anonymous
February 13, 2007
James, it's not affecting you because you have a PocketPC, not a Smartphone. (-: Steve, strangely, my dad's "AV" number was for a city called "Wyandotte." That's why I never realized the city connection. I got some offline comments though, and put a quick edit in the entry. Eric, if I required that all thumb keyboards have a number row, then I'd effectively require that all devices be larger than they are. I'd rather give OEMs the option to make their devices the way they want and try to solve the resulting problems in software. Also, a number row isn't as good for dialing as a grid. Dan, we went back and forth on the usability of what you described. There's some cognative dissonance to have a key that, everywhere else types a letter and does a number when you hit alt, suddenly do a number and type a letter when you hit alt. As you said, users can figure it out. But we weren't sure that was the case right off the bat and needed to do testing. In the end, yes, that's largely what we've done in WM6 (I can finally talk aboul WM6 now). In WM6 you'll be able to hit the alt key to tell the keyboard, "I know you think I want to type numbers, but I really want letters now." Matthew and Joe (hey Joe!) I'll find the API you need to call to use the lookup table and post it here. Matthew, you definitely want to use the built in table instead of your own. That way you can write one app for all phones. Ness, the table is exactly what you're describing. The phone software is using the table to figure out what the user wants so that he doesn't need to type special things. The trouble is, we believe that the user wants to type phone numbers more often than 1-800-flowers. If you're saying that the phone software should magically tell the difference between phone numbers and 1-800-flowers, I'm open to suggestions on how. As far as I can see, that would require reading the user's mind, and that's not technology we have yet... MikeAnonymous
February 13, 2007
Two comments have already said this, but I want to make it absolutely clear. I got an offline comment asking how to dial 1-800-flowers on touch screen device (PocketPC). On PocketPCs, there's an option in the right softkey menu to view the number pad. That number pad has the 2-ABC, 3-DEF images on the screen. It's not ideal, but it works in a pinch. MikeAnonymous
February 13, 2007
Matthew and Joe, I went searching for the ISV mechanism for you folks to make use of the number table, and discovered that the story is really messy in WM5. There is no consistent way to do it across WM5 devices, and no exposed way for ISVs to even use the various things we do have. )-: In WM6 we've exposed a mechanism for ISVs to explicitly put the keyboard into number mode (SHSetImeMode). Given that we're not helpful for WM5 (and sorry about that), will the new WM6 method meet your needs in new devices? If not, can you tell us more about what you're trying to do (you can use the "Email us" link if you don't want to say publicly) so we can understand your needs? Thanks, MikeAnonymous
February 14, 2007
Mike, Thanks for looking into it. I'm not surprised the method you mentioned isn't exposed in WM5, else we would have (hopefully) found it. I can't speak to whether WM6 serves our need since its been out for just a couple days and I've not had a chance to look at any documentation on it and certainly don't yet have any devices running it, which is the only way to really know what's going on. I did just search MSDN for SHSetImeMode, but get no results. One part of our software is a security screen which accepts a PIN code in a text field. On the Pocket PC, we put up a numeric pad with thumb-able buttons. On Smartphone, we obviously can't do that, so the keyboard is the only input mechanism. Requiring the user to push Alt to make a number for each character is unsatisfactory, especially when you consider the user never sees the input and thus won't be able to catch accidental input of a letter. The PIN code is used for a few things, one of which is authenticating with a hardware token that has a 3 try limit before permanent lockout. There's an extra difficulty added in that we have called GXOpenInput to prevent launching other applications with the side buttons, which also means the whole IME system is not seeing the key presses. Hence, our current approach of translating the key codes through a table. If we had access to the table in the device, then that would relieve us from maintaining our own table for each device.Anonymous
February 14, 2007
Thanks Matthew. I've forwarded your scenario on to our designers so they can mull it over. I asked them if it would be okay to point you at the table in the registry. But that wouldn't be good because we moved it for WM6 (I guess the fact that we were planning to move it was one of the reasons we didn't publish the location in WM5). MikeAnonymous
February 14, 2007
This is a big deal for me. No, I don't call 1-800-FLOWERS every day, but I do send voicemails via my company voicemail system, and you have to spell the last name of the person you are sending the message to. Nothing like recording a long detailed message, and freezing up when it asks you to spell the last name of the person you are sending it to. Unacceptable. I sure do hope there is a fix very soon.Anonymous
February 15, 2007
Mike, If the table moved between WM5 and WM6, then its just a matter of checking the OS version to determine where in the registry to harvest the table from. That's still a lot less complexity than checking the phone model and using that to determine which of many table in the application to use, assuming a table is even present in the application for the model on which it is currently executing.Anonymous
February 20, 2007
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February 26, 2007
Would anyone please refer to a post on how to add/change the dialer screen background? This is one of those things that p*sses me off. Unterstandibly the phone is created for world-wide use, but does Samsung not take the dialing schemes of the US into consideration? Bad part on the companies as well who do not publish their phone # with the letter number. Used to be the case, but I see it less and lessAnonymous
March 07, 2007
And from the book of "There's more than one way to do it", dial 411 and ask them to connect you to 1-800-FLOWERS. If you can afford a Smartphone, you can probably afford the directory assistance fee.Anonymous
March 13, 2007
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March 25, 2007
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March 26, 2007
First, the iPhone doesn't have buttons, so it's pretty hard to claim that they've figured out the right thing to do on a phone with buttons. If you're talking about what their onscreen keyboard does, then sure, but our onscreen keyboards have been doing the same thing for over seven years now. Second, I disagree that it's obvious that you should press the number key to get letters. What's obvious to you may not be as clear to the millions of other users of these devices. One of the difficulties in writing software for so many people is that we can't just assume that what makes sense to a technical/developer type works for everyone else. I do agree that it's the right thing to do, but "obvious" overstates the case. Third, as I said above, yes this is precisely what we ended up doing for Windows Mobile 6. MikeAnonymous
April 09, 2007
I had a Blackberry and it didn't have any trouble at all with the fact that you could use the Alt key to get letters in a phone number. And I also supported them in an enterprise environment and it didn't confuse any of our users, ever. Anyone who's just dialing numbers is not even going to try pressing Alt to see what happens. This just seems like a huge lack of foresight on Microsoft's part, and a lack of initiative on any phone manufacturers' part to get it fixed before shipping their QWERTY phones. The excuses are interesting to read though, mainly because the logic behind them is so paper thin.Anonymous
April 19, 2007
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May 22, 2007
Mike, a big question for ISV's is: Given any keypress, how can our apps find out if there is any other numbers/letters associated with this press? i.e. Press "F" on the Dash, query to find out it could also be a "6"? Forcing the input to numeric mode does not solve this problem, we want to be able to take the current press and let our application decide how it wants to handle the keypress. Thank you.Anonymous
May 22, 2007
Karen, can you give us more detail on the problem you're trying to solve? If I give your feedback to the team in question, that will be their first question back to me. So far, all the problems I've brought to them have been solved by the ISV being able to choose whether the keyboard was typing numbers or letters. We'd definitely like to hear about scenarios where that isn't sufficient. MikeAnonymous
June 25, 2007
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August 21, 2007
for blackberry its so easy- just hold the ALT key down and type in the letters.Anonymous
October 17, 2007
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November 03, 2007
I have the new MOTO Q9H with WM6 and have been trying to dial these 1-800-Flowers just to see if it worked like it did on my Blackberry and to my shock i can't do it at all. i heard that its supposed to work on WM6 but it doesn't seam to work (lucky for me i have only used it once about a year ago on my blackberry) not a huge issue but seams like a big OBVIOUS over site on MS developers side. yes i said obvious because it's just that obvious i have done support for some of the dumbest people when it comes to technology and they have no problems figuring this out on there own on there berry's. it's sad really I have always like pocket pc's and most Microsoft software just one small think and i'm annoyed. no one's perfect i guessAnonymous
November 15, 2007
This is not just a problem for dialing 1-800-FLOWERS which may be a rare requirement. Where this limitation really stumps you is dialing company dial by name directories. My palm Treo 650 solves this elegantly by reversing the use of the ALT key while in phone mode. So if I wanted to input "PAT" to dial by name, I would press "P", "<alt> A" and "T". Currently, I am testing the T-Mobile Dash and was amazed that this was such a major issue. But it could keep me from changing to this device for my company.Anonymous
November 18, 2007
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November 25, 2007
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November 27, 2007
As an engineer and a user, there are a lot of things that companies do that I don't understand. I can give them technical solutions to their problems (as we did for the 1-800-flowers thing) and I can tell them how I think things should be done. But if they say, "No, having my name 20 pixels tall is more important than anything else," then I have to assume they know stuff that I don't about why such things are important. Personally, I did the same kind of thing on my Dash as you did on yours. MikeAnonymous
December 27, 2007
Mike, Has the issue of dialing letters DURING a phone call been addressed? There are many automated services and voicemail systems that say things like "dial the two keys that correspond to the letters of your state" or "dial the first four letters of the person's last name"... how do we do this on Windows Mobile while on a call? Thanks, Jake.Anonymous
December 27, 2007
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December 29, 2007
Answer: You have to get an app like DialLetters Look at the pictures here: http://www.mobiletopsoft.com/smartphone/download-dialletters-dial-pad-letters-for-q-1-0.html Mike, Has the issue of dialing letters DURING a phone call been addressed? There are many automated services and voicemail systems that say things like "dial the two keys that correspond to the letters of your state" or "dial the first four letters of the person's last name"... how do we do this on Windows Mobile while on a call?Anonymous
January 05, 2008
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January 07, 2008
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January 09, 2008
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January 11, 2008
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January 14, 2008
Hey Mike, I have a shadow, and am trying to figure out how to solve this dilemma, I called my jobs automated directory, and when trying to enter the persons last name, brought me to somehting completely wierd, and also, how would I dial 1-800-GETZUNE for example? Is there no fix for this on the Shadow?Anonymous
January 29, 2008
It seems to me that you could easily implement a solution to this problem. Just make it so that when you enter into the dialing screen, the alt key is enabled by default. That way, if you want to dial a vanity number you simply hit the alt key and type out the letters. The phone could then translate the letters back into numbers. That solves the pressing alt to dial numbers problem. It would be similar to the way the phone knows to use numbers when it is creating an entry into the contacts list.Anonymous
February 01, 2008
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March 01, 2008
Mike - Any news? This is a daily problem, and VERY frustrating. It's so easy - just let us use the Fn key to switch between 123 and abc modes like we always do! And fine, when in dialer mode, make 123 the default instead of abc... why the problem??Anonymous
March 17, 2008
Read through this whole thing and gotta say its frustrating when people say who cares... there are ALOT of numbers out there that are advertised as 1800 ZZZ 5555.... as well as the business directory problem.. if smart phones are the way of the business future then why are the phone producers not concerned... these phones are supposed to make our business life easier.. i am finding this one flaw very frustrating HTC S640 userAnonymous
May 05, 2008
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May 20, 2008
I run into this problem DAILY! It is frustrating! I guess I always thought that when I was in the dailer and it automatically goes into function mode and dials numbers only, that the whole keyboard should go into that mode. Then if I dial 'flowers' on my keypad, the right number associated with that letter would be dialed. when I go into phone dialing mode, the rest of those keys are currently usless anyway! You'd just have to make sure the numbers are on the right letters on the keypad! Anyway, this is infuriating and hope you find a patch to fix it quickly! If nothing else, can't you just create a new mode/translator where you type in the letters and it tells you the correct numbers?Anonymous
July 21, 2008
Just search for QWERTYConvert on google - simple to use java software that works on most phones. You can download trial version from Handango and see if it works for you..Anonymous
August 05, 2008
I create application for Windows Mobile 6, and testing on Treo750. I cannot set numeric input when textbox got control. I tried InputModeEditor.SetInputMode(this, InputMode.Numeric); and SHSetImeMode(p.MainWindowHandle, SHIME_MODE.SHIME_MODE_NUMBERS); but neither one works. Can you help me?Anonymous
November 18, 2008
Alternatively, you could just, you know, remember which letter goes with which key. It's not hard. Starting with the number '2', each key has 3 letters, except 7 and 9, which have 4. Very simple. Not as quick as tapping out the name directly, but it'll do until it's fixed, yes?Anonymous
January 04, 2009
This post and the comments under here helped me a lot in figuring out a solution to that problem. Thanks a hefty.Anonymous
March 16, 2009
Here we are in 2009 and still there is no fix for this with WM other than to purchase an iPhone. This could be addressed with a simple letter dial application but there seems to be no will for development.Anonymous
March 16, 2009
This is a nice post. Learned a lot from the post as well from the replies. As someone mentioned above, I too would like to set 'number' mode for a WM6 Pro device. Looks like 'SHSetImeMode' and 'SetInputMode' methods work only for WM Standard. Please post if someone know how to do this for WM Pro? I am sure there must be a way to do this as the device does this already by switching to number in the 'Contacts' application. I don't know how to do this in my C# application. I tried sending EM_INPUTMODE using SendMessage. No use! Any help would be greatly appreciated! -SenAnonymous
March 25, 2009
I reply for my own post. It could be helpful for someone who is looking for an answer. After lots of frustrations, I got this working on my Samsung Epix. It is a WM6.1 Pro device with a h/w key board (like a Treo 750). I wanted to set it to 'number' mode when I needed a number only input. The same SHSetImeMode worked, all I had to was to pass the handle of the desktop window (don't know why!) instead of the actual window/control that had focus. SHSetImeMode(GetDesktopWindow(), SHIME_MODE.SHIME_MODE_NUMBERS); There was one guy posted somewhere that he had to pass Process.MainWindowHandle for his HP device to work. I tried that too, but never worked in my Epix. I was highly frustrated and thought of giving one last try by passing handle from GetDesktopWindow. I was thrilled, it worked, at least on my Samsung Epix.Anonymous
May 25, 2009
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