Shortcuts and tips for the BlackBerry Storm smartphone

BESadmin · #1 (**permalink**) 01-12-2008, 12:26 AM

Shortcuts and tips for the BlackBerry Storm smartphone

Doc ID : KB16137
Last Modified : 2008-11-21
Document Type : How To

Environment

BlackBerry® Storm™ 9500 smartphone
BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530 smartphone

Procedure

This article describes shortcuts and tips for the BlackBerry Storm smartphone.

The following graphic highlights some important keys on your BlackBerry Storm smartphone.

Select and highlight

To select an item, click the item by pressing the screen.
To highlight an item or to place the cursor, touch the screen lightly.

Move vertically and horizontally

To scroll down, slide your finger up. To move down a screen, slide your finger up quickly.
To scroll up, slide your finger down. To move up a screen, slide your finger down quickly.

Move between items (email messages and pictures)

If you are in an open message or a picture, you can move to the next message or picture by sliding your finger to the left quickly.
If you are in an open message or a picture, you can move to the previous message or picture by sliding your finger to the right quickly.

Zoom and pan

To zoom in to a picture, web page, or map, touch the screen twice quickly. To zoom out, press the Escape key.
To pan a picture, slide your finger in any direction.

Display a shortcut bar and shortcut names

To display or hide a shortcut bar in web pages, maps, or pictures, tap the screen.
To display the name of a shortcut, touch and hold the shortcut button until the shortcut name appears.

Play songs and videos

To play the next or previous song, hold the Volume Up key or the Volume
Down key.
To pause or resume playing a song or video, press the Mute key.
To increase or decrease the volume, press the Volume Up key or the Volume Down key.
To display the audio menu while playing a song, tap the screen once.

Take a picture

To zoom in to or out from a subject, press the Volume Up key or the Volume Down key.
To lock focus on a subject before you take a picture, press the Right Convenience key halfway.
To take a picture, press the Right Convenience key.

Copy or cut text

To copy or cut text, complete the following steps:

<LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none">Put two fingers on the screen simultaneously to highlight text between the touches.
- To adjust the start of the highlight, touch and drag at the top.
- To adjust the end of the highlight, touch and drag at the bottom.
To copy text, click in the middle of the highlighted text, this opens a menu with the Copy option, or display the menu and select Copy.

Tip: To remove the highlight, press the Escape key.

Use menus and keys

To view menu options in an application, press the Menu key.
To close a menu or move back a screen, press the Escape key.
To lock the BlackBerry smartphone, press the Lock key.
To return to the Home screen, press the End key.

Hide the keyboard

To hide the keyboard, slide your finger down, or select Hide Keyboard from the menu.

For more navigation tips, see the Setup Wizard application on your BlackBerry smartphone.

timm058 · #2 (**permalink**) 22-12-2008, 06:56 PM

I find it quite frustrating when typing messages with Suretype and being unable to scroll back through the text and correct mistakes. If for example the wrong word has been typed, which realistically with the size of the screen its easy to do, then its hard to go back and correct it. I know you can just touch the word to highlight it but that is not particularly accurate.
Sure you can use spell check but that doesn't always work. Is there any way to arrow back through the word to more accurately correct a word.

Gregmyers · #3 (**permalink**) 22-12-2008, 09:12 PM

Hi,
I agree with you that this can be quite frustrating but there is facility to scroll back. Just lightly drag your finger over the keyboard and you can scroll back to the area that you need to correct. Click (ie. press the screen) with your finger on the word you wish to change and make the change. Suggestions will come up in the suretype menu, just scroll down (drag on the screen again) to the combination you require and select it.
Hope this helps.
KR
Greg Myers

salem · #4 (**permalink**) 24-12-2008, 06:56 PM

I hate it when typing in qwerty and you go to use a key on the top line but click in the text box instead. Its really hard to then get the cursor back to the end of the line. I wish there were arrow key gestures or something.

Gregmyers · #5 (**permalink**) 24-12-2008, 11:02 PM

(Courtesy; BlackBerry Cool)
The fine ladies and gents over at the ChangeWave HotWire blog have conducted a survey amongst 61 new owners of the BlackBerry Storm, pitting the results against a similar survey conducted in July 2007 for new owners of the original iPhone. The results?

The overall satisfaction rating given by new owners of the Blackberry Storm can, at best, be characterized as lukewarm. One in three Storm owners (33%) said they were Very Satisfied with their new model, well below the 52% Very Satisfied rating given by all current owners of BlackBerry smart phones.

Simply put, the Storm satisfaction rating is similar to that of mid-tier smart phone manufacturers like Nokia (32%), Motorola (32%), HTC (31%) and Samsung (30%). While far from bad, it’s mediocre - which means it’s a potential concern regarding RIM’s head-to-head battle with Apple.

In comparison, the original iPhone’s Very Satisfied rating (77%) was more than double that of the new BlackBerry Storm (33%). Importantly, the Storm’s Unsatisfied rating (14%) is three times higher than that of the original iPhone (5%). The HotWire blog doesn’t think the Storm is a dud, however but merely suffered from an unusual array of initial launch glitches that brought its rating behind the average rating for other BlackBerry models.

I think it was quite fair of ChangeWave to compare the BlackBerry Storm against the 1st-gen iPhone. If RIM can continue to iterate on the Storm OS, who knows how the next-gen version will stack up against the iPhone 3G? You can see the key BlackBerry Storm likes and dislikes from the ChangeWave survey after the jump.

|via HotWire Blog|

BlackBerry Storm: Key Likes and Dislikes

Respondents were asked what they liked best and disliked most about the Storm. The results show that RIM made the right choice in producing a touch screen phone, being that it’s a highly popular option in the smart phone market. One-in-two (49%) say Touch Screen Interface is what they like best about their BlackBerry Storm. Other key likes include Screen Size (46%) and Screen Resolution (43%).

At the same time, the touch screen interface represents one of the BlackBerry Storm model’s biggest Achilles heel. In terms of dislikes, Lack of a QWERTY Keyboard (21%), Touch Screen Interface (20%) and Difficult to Use (20%) were top issues, along with Short Battery Life (21%).

© BlackBerry Cool for BlackBerry Cool, 2008

Link:46% of BlackBerry Storm owners ’somewhat satisfied’ | BlackBerry Cool

texasgirlinnyc · #6 (**permalink**) 19-03-2009, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timm058

I find it quite frustrating when typing messages with Suretype and being unable to scroll back through the text and correct mistakes. If for example the wrong word has been typed, which realistically with the size of the screen its easy to do, then its hard to go back and correct it. I know you can just touch the word to highlight it but that is not particularly accurate.
Sure you can use spell check but that doesn't always work. Is there any way to arrow back through the word to more accurately correct a word.

I just stumbled upon this last night and never found any info in the manual on how to do it. If you lightly touch and hold your finger on the screen, the cursor will turn into a blue outline box. Then start to move your finger to exactly where you want to edit. Once you pick up your finger, you can make the changes from the keyboard. Then you can do the same thing to go back to the end of the sentence you were writing (or anywhere in the document, for that matter). Hope that helps you!

salem · #7 (**permalink**) 19-03-2009, 07:34 AM

This was one of my pet peeves for this device, the difficulty in moving cursor with any sort of accuracy. Thank you so much for sharing this discovery! It's exactly what I was looking for.

nothanks · #8 (**permalink**) 19-03-2009, 04:11 PM

For those that want a video of what last 2 posts described:

YouTube - Tips for text editing on the BlackBerry Storm

Found this a few days ago..

nothanks · #9 (**permalink**) 19-03-2009, 04:14 PM

Also a handy tip:

YouTube - BlackBerry Storm Tips - Send Button Features