HTC's Keyboard Doesn't Support ASCII '|' (vertical pipe/bar character)
chienpo
Newbie

Okay, if anyone from Verizon ever reads this, please respond and let me know what I can do to escalate this issue (which is ultimately an HTC issue; however it's one that won't ever be resolved w/out the likes of Verizon leaning on the).

The problem is that the software keyboard that comes with the HTC Thunderbolt doesn't allow you to input the 'vertical bar' or 'pipe' character: '|'. You can enter a character that *looks* similar, but that isn't the same character, by pressing the "12#" button on the bottom-right, then pressing the "1/2" button on the bottom left, and then pressing the '¦' button on the second row, 6th key over (from left). The '¦' and '|' characters, as you can see, look similar, but are slightly different. If all I cared about were looks (like when texting) I wouldn't (and haven't) bring this up.

The problem is with passwords (whether with websites or native android applications). The 'pipe' character is an ASCII character (decimal value 124) that is used on US keyboards whenever you press the '|' key (in slightly different locations on various desktop/laptop keyboards). Since I use a password manager that generates random passwords for me that often include non-numeric, non-alphabetic characters, like the pipe, several passwords include the pipe character. I cannot log into any of these sites/apps using my phone though because I can't actually type the pipe character. The '¦' character (broken pipe; which, btw, some desktop/laptop keyboards have keys that look like the broken pipe, but in fact use the regular pipe '|' character; depends on your OS and it's character set and keyboard mapping settings; wow, super-long digression, so to repeat my non-parenthetical comments, the '¦' character...) is a UTF-8 character which uses two bytes (0xC2 and 0xA6, or 194 followed by 166) which is why it can't be used when trying to enter the '|' character in a password field.

In some instances, I can *very inconveniently* work around this by copying the character I want, or my whole password, from a text, email, or web page and then pasting it in. However, there are some apps, specifically, WYSE PocketCloud that I use to access my various workstations remotely, where the input field isn't any kind of native widget that'll cause the keyboard to pop-up and allow my to long-press until the "Paste" option comes up. Instead, the app gives me a way to have the keyboard pop up so I can send key-presses (in this case to my remote workstation) but there's nothing to long-press to get the "Paste" option to come up.

So, in short, until someone at HTC patches this issue (as a programmer myself, I may have to write my own keyboard app and I'm incensed at the moronic coder at HTC who though using the UTF-8 '¦' instead of ASCII '|' like a normal keyboard was a good idea) I'm stuck with very awful options.

So, please please please someone tell how I can escalate this. The change would actually likely be incredibly simple and could eventually be rolled into a future update/release for Verizon's team to review and then push out to all of us.

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Re: HTC's Keyboard Doesn't Support ASCII '|' (vertical pipe/bar character)
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

You could try a third party keyboard replacement from the Play Store and see if it works for you.

I use SwiftKey keyboard and it has a key that looks like the "pipe" character you describe. I have used this keyboard on a Thunderbolt as well as other phones.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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