You’ve used a keyboard on your computer, so you already know how to use the Droid 2’s—start tapping away. But there are some useful things you need to know about the physical keyboard:
The four arrow keys at the lower-right of the keyboard let you move your cursor wherever you want. That’s a big advantage over the virtual keyboards.
To enter symbols such as {, }, ©, ®, and so on, hold down the Alt key and the spacebar simultaneously. Then tap the symbol you want to use.
Note
You can also enter symbols by holding down a physical key until a choice of symbols appears, just as when you use the virtual keyboard. See The Express Lane to Punctuation Marks for details.
To enter a blue character in the corner of a key (for example, the numeral 7 on the U key), hold down the Alt key while pressing the key. Press Alt lock or else press the Alt key twice in succession to put the keyboard into Alt lock if you want to enter several alternative characters in succession. Press the Alt or Alt lock key again to get the keyboard out of Alt lock.
The Shift key works as you would expect—press it while pressing another key for the uppercase letter. If you want to put the keyboard into Shift lock, press the Shift key twice in a row. Press it again to get it out of Shift lock.
To select text, hold down the Shift and press an arrow key to define your text. You can then cut, copy, and paste the same way as when using one of the virtual keyboards. (You can also use your finger to select text, as with the virtual keyboards; see Copying and Pasting Text.)
To delete an entire line of text, press the Alt key and the Delete keys simultaneously.
The OK key is the same as an Enter key.
To jump to the beginning or end of a line, press the Alt key and either the left arrow key (to jump to the beginning), or the right arrow key (to jump to the end).
To jump to the beginning or end of a document such as an email, press the Alt key and either the up arrow key (to jump to the beginning), or the right arrow key (to jump to the end).
Note
To customize how the physical keyboard works, press the Menu key and select Settings→Language & Keyboard →Device Keyboard. You’ll be able to change whether the keyboard will automatically correct mis-typed words, automatically capitalize the first letter in a sentence, and whether you should be able to press the space key twice in order to enter a period.
Even if you’re not a fan of the slideout keyboard, there’s a very good reason to use it once in a while—for its keyboard shortcuts. You’ll be able to launch apps and do all kinds of nifty things without having to do anything except press a couple of keys simultaneously. Use it once, and you’ll find yourself using it time and time again. The Droid 2 has dozens of keyboard shortcuts, as you can see in the following tables.
Key Combination | What It Launches |
|---|---|
Search + B | Browser |
Search + G | Gmail |
Search + P | Music |
Search + L | Calendar |
When you’re using your browser, you can press the Menu key on your Droid 2 (it’s not on the keyboard; it’s the normal hard Menu key) and another key simultaneously as keyboard shortcuts. The following table shows what you can do.
Key Combination | What It Does |
|---|---|
Menu + J | Goes back a page |
Menu + K | Goes forward a page |
Menu + R | Refreshes the current page |
Menu + F | Searches on a page |
Menu + A | Adds a bookmark |
Menu + H | Opens browsing history |
Menu + S | Shares the current page |
Menu + D | Opens Downloads |
Menu + G | Opens Page Info |
Spacebar | Pages down |
Shift + Spacebar | Pages up |
Menu + O | Zooms out |
Menu + I | Zooms in |
Shift + Spacebar | Pages up |
Key Combination | What It Does |
|---|---|
R | When reading a message, it creates a new email to reply to the sender only. |
A | When reading a message, it creates a new email to reply to all recipients of the message. |
Y | When reading an email, archives the message. |
Menu key + C | Creates a new email. |
Menu key + U | Refreshes the inbox. |
Want to create your own keyboard shortcuts for launching an app? It’s a breeze. Press the menu key and select Settings→Applications→Quick Launch. You come to a screen that shows all of your keyboard shortcuts for launching apps. Tap any letter that has “Assign application” next to it, and a list of apps appears. Choose the one you want to be launched by that letter, and it will work from now on. At any point after that, you can press the Search key on the keyboard and then the key you just assigned, to launch the app.
To change how an existing keyboard shortcut works, tap it, then select a new app; that new app will now be launched by the keyboard shortcut.