How can I display more than four matching words when I enter text into the PPC?
Upon writing a greatly updated and revised version of my article on PPC dictionaries (see the linked article from here), I've invented a neat registry hack that makes it possible to raise the number of suggested words to 10 in WM2003SE, 8 in WM2003 to 5 in PPC2k2. A WM2003SE example:
a WM2003 one:
and, finally, a PPC2k2 one:
(The first using the built-in English, the second two using my custom-built Finnish dictionary.)
What's the point in this, you may ask. The more words shown on-screen, the faster/easier you may find the matching one. (Please also see this PPCMag tip on the importance of this.)
To enable this feature, get a registry editor (any of them will do, except for the PC-based Sabon Rai Registry Viewer – please read the posts here on them) and, after at least once touching Settings/Input/Word Completion (for example, setting the "Suggest X word(s)" to another value) so that the registry values are indeed present (after a hard reset, they aren't – you must explicitly touch Settings/Input/Word Completion for them to be entered in the Registry!), change the value of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Sip\SuggWords to up to 10 (under WM2003SE), 8 (under WM2003) or 5 (under PPC2k2).
After changing this value, soft reset your device and all is done. Please also note that after entering such an officially not supported value into the Registry, you should not go to Settings/Input any more – it'll reset the number of shown words to zero, meaning you'll end up having to hack the registry again.
Of course, the built-in, shipped (albeit also overwritable – see this article (alternatives: iPAQ HQ, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox and BrightHand)) word matches will be show together with the custom-added ones. In the following screenshot, after entering 'en', I've been preseted with six Finnish (coming from the custom dictionary) and two English (the built-in, standard dictionary) matches.
Unfortunately, this 5/8/10 is the maximum you can use.
Note that Tweaks2k2.NET also supports (Tweaks/Keyboard Tricks/Misc/6 Suggested Words) changing the maximal number of shown words:
but it only sets this value to six, which is too much for PPC2k2 and doesn't make use of the maximal capabilities of post-PPC2k2 operating systems.
After finding it out, I've also made a Google search for this registry entry. I've found a Czech and a Spanish one, in addition to a XDA-Developers "put 0 in there to disable it" Wiki entry. The Czech, as far as I was able to decode it, only mentioned the standard, 0-4 values; the Spanish one, as far as I could understand, mentioned '6' as the maximum number. That is, the PPCMag Expert Blog is the first place you can read about this in English and with the correct, operating system version-dependent maximal number. It's indeed worth subscribing to the RSS ;)
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