While browsing the Web, I ran into this article by Al Sacco where he lays out some of the tricks and shortcuts for using the Storm that he has discovered. I am not a Storm user so this tips are from his point of view, and I thought some of you might find this information helpful if you’re one of the many using the first touchscreen Blackberry.
I’ve had a chance to play with the device and found the device to be really easy to use, but did not get to really test it out like the everyday user, and I do agree that it has room for improvement, but it’s a well-designed and stylish device.
Here are a few of the most useful tips that Al Sacco noted on his article (the Storm has three types of on-screen keyboards):
Keyboard shortcuts
- To switch back and forth between multitap and suretype while on portrait mode, simply hit the menu and navigate to the options to enable either one;
- to bring up the keyboard, swipe your finger upward till the middle, and to hide it, downwards from the top;
- to type special characters such as “ñ”, tap the “n” letter, but don’t click it; a menu of options will appear and give you the special characters, so you can just select your option and click it;
- to lock in the number options, hold down the “123” key for a few seconds and it should remain locked until you hide it; to unlock it, hold the “123” key again;
- to lock in the capital letter mode, hold the “shift/arrow up” for a few seconds; to unlock it, repeat that step;
- to change text input languages, hold the Storm in landscape mode, bring up the virtual keyboard and click the “Globe” key found directly to the left of the Space key. Next, scroll to the desired language, highlight it and click the Storm’s screen to select.
NAVIGATING WITH THE STORM
- Scrolling through messages/Web page: to scroll downward, place your finger lightly at the bottom of the screen, (don’t click) and drag upwards; to scroll down a full screen, slide your finger rapidly;
- to scroll up, place your finger lightly at the top of the screen and drag down; to scroll fast, just drag your finger down rapidly;
- zoom: to zoom in a picture or Webpage, tap the screen lightly twice; to zoom out, hit the escape button;
- pan: just place your finger lightly on the screen without clicking and move it in the direction you desire;
- switching through active apps: hold the Blackberry menu button until a ribbon of active apps appear; tap the ribbon and scroll to select the application you are looking for.
Text & Messaging
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Copy & Paste – to copy and paste text from one location to another, lightly touch a finger to the Storm’s screen at the start of the text you wish to copy and hold it in place; with your other finger, touch the end where you wish to copy, this highlights the text; then hit the menu key, scroll to copy and follow the same steps to paste;
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to quickly search your messages for all mailings from a specific contact, find a message from that contact in your Messages application and then gently hold a finger on screen directly over the contact’s name; after a few seconds, all messages from that contact will appear on screen;
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to delete multiple messages at once, open your Messages app and gently hold a finger on a message near the top of the list you want to delete; keep that finger in place and touch another message further down the list; all the messages between your two fingers will be highlighted; from there, you can click the Delete Messages key at the bottom or the screen to do away with the selected messages, or you can continue to select older messages by keeping one finger on the selected messages and scrolling down.
Those are some of the tips that stand out most from Al Sacco over at www.itbusiness.ca. Read the complete list of tips here: Blackberry Storm tips.
Just want to say thanks to Al Sacco for getting this tips together.
