Continuous Path Foundation

JustType Welcome Guide

Welcome Guide

Quick Setup has turned JustType on. This guide now takes you through customizing it for yourself, one step per page, in the order that works best. Each page says what the step is for and which settings it involves, with links to the parts of the User Manual that say more.

Opening this guide again: Open Welcome Guide is the first row of Settings. In Keyboard Settings, which SETTINGS on the NAVIGATE 1 page opens, the guide opens above the keyboard — that enables you to access everything using just the JustType keyboard (especially if you find a typical touchscreen hard to use); in System Settings (the JustType app, using the touchscreen) it opens on the Help screen. Either way, it opens each time on the page you last read.

How to use this guide

Take the steps in order, or go straight to any of them from the list below. Nothing here is final: every setting can be changed again whenever you like, and someone else can help you with any step.

Helpful hint: There is an app on the Google Play Store named “Notepad Free” — it is free, and has almost no ads. JustType can help you use Notepad Free to make it very simple to manage where you create text as you are typing: you can name each note, and switch between them with just a few keystrokes. You can use them as actual note documents (of course) but they can also be places where you can hold different conversations when you are communicating. We highly recommend installing it and giving it a try.

Reading this guide: You will often see a key labeled ADJUST FONT as you read this guide or the User Manual. Press it and you can adjust the font size, light or dark mode, and so on — whatever you need to make it easier to read the text. You will also find a READ TOPIC key that reads the text aloud; while it reads, the key says PAUSE, and once paused, CONTINUE.

Your language

JustType predicts words in the language you type, and shows its keys, settings and help in the language you read.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Language options.

Your input method

The input method is how you press the eight keys: by touch, by swiping, with one or two switches, with a joystick, or by moving your head. Everything else depends on it, so choose it first. Because the keys are few and large, a method that might have been too hard with an ordinary keyboard may work well here; it is worth trying again, experimenting to find what works best for you.

Input methods compares them. On the touchscreen: Direct Selection (tap a key), Directional Selection (swipe in a direction, anywhere on the screen — highly recommended) and the Touchscreen Switch (using the screen itself as a switch). For someone who prefers a method not based on the touchscreen, the adaptive methods: Single-Switch Scanning, Two-Switch Selection, Joystick, Mouse Joystick and Head Tracking.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Input methods, Adaptive input method. The input method could be a risky setting to change: after APPLY you press CONFIRM within 15 seconds to show the new method actually works for you, or the old one comes back (Keyboard Settings explains).

Tune your input method

Each input method has its own settings — how fast, how sensitive, how long a press must last — and the right values turn hard work into easy typing. Many sliders offer TEST, so you can feel a value before you keep it.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Input methods, then the page of your method. Choose and tune your input method says what to look for.

Size and look of the keyboard

Make the keys as large as you need and the text easy to read.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Keyboard setup.

On a slower device, Optimize for slower devices, on the first page of Keyboard Settings, makes typing quicker.

Your letter layout

Each key carries several letters. The Optimized layout places them so that the word you want is usually the first one offered; Alphabetical looks familiar but needs more corrections. Give Optimized a day or two: it soon feels natural, and it will always be faster.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Keyboard setup › Letter layout. Keyboard layouts compares the two.

Typing words

Now try it. Press one key for each letter of a word, without stopping to check: JustType works the word out from the keys and shows the most likely one. If you want a different word, SELECT steps through the others in the Selection list. The first key of the next word makes the word shown the one that is kept, and the space goes in by itself (Auto-spacing). UnDo / DELETE takes back the last key press.

How to JustType is the short chapter on typing this way. Leave the guide, type a few sentences in any app, and come back.

Symbols, functions and the other pages

The letters are on the MAIN page. Three of its keys also carry a small badge — SYM, FNS or NAV — and pressed first, before any letters, they offer the SYMBOLS, FUNCTIONS or NAVIGATE pages in the Selection list, where SELECT opens one (How keyboard pages work).

Your own words and phrases

JustType knows many words, but not every name or word you use. Add one once with ADD CUSTOM WORD, spelling it with TWO-KEY SPELLING; from then on you type it like any other word. A phrase you use often — a greeting, a request, or anything you might want to say again or say quickly — can be saved with ADD PHRASE behind a short abbreviation, so that a few key presses type it whole (Abbreviations and phrases). Both ADD functions are on the NAVIGATE pages.

Changing what you have written

To change text already written, move the cursor to it: tap it, or use the arrows of EDIT MODE or SYSTEM NAV. Auto-load word at cursor decides whether a word the cursor lands in comes back onto the keys to be changed; Editing existing text explains both choices — they will make sense once you start typing. EDIT MODE also selects, cuts, copies, pastes and re-cases text.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Keyboard setup › Selection list › Auto-load word at cursor.

Hearing what happens

JustType can confirm each key press with a sound, a flash or a vibration, and your UI feedback voice can say the key names, the words you choose and the page you are on — a help when the screen is hard to see.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Input methods › Feedback and Spoken feedback. SPOKEN FEEDBACK turns the voice on and off from the keyboard.

Speaking for yourself

JustType can speak what you write in your personal voice — each word, each sentence, or only when you ask — so it can be your voice in a conversation. Personal voice and Spoken feedback explains the two voices, and Speaking for yourself how to use yours while typing.

Where: the first page of Keyboard Settings, Personal voice. The SPEAKING CONTROLS page speaks and adjusts it from the keyboard.

Controlling your device

With SYSTEM NAV, the same eight keys and the same input method work the rest of the device: move to anything on the screen and tap it, scroll, go back or home, and switch apps. It is set up once, on the touchscreen, in System Settings › Navigation mode: the JustType Navigation accessibility service turned on in Android’s settings, the “display over other apps” permission, and Enable navigation mode. Someone can do that for you. Navigation mode explains it and its setup, and SYSTEM NAV MODE on NAVIGATE 1 then starts it.

Where: Keyboard Settings › Navigation mode, for how the SYSTEM NAV keyboard looks and works.

Privacy

Words, phrases and notes can be kept in a privacy circle, so that they are offered only where you choose — in messages to one person, for instance. You do not need them to use JustType; What a privacy circle is explains them, and Enable privacy circles turns them on or off.

Keep your words safe

Everything JustType learns — your words, phrases and settings, even the way you express yourself — can be backed up to a folder you choose and restored later, on this device or a new one. When you update JustType, it keeps a private copy of your data while it updates, and puts the copy back automatically if the update can’t finish. Backups are made in System Settings, on the touchscreen: Backup & restore.

Help whenever you need it

That is the whole guide. Come back to any page whenever you like.

The JustType User Manual