New Quadro Release - Nice Improvement, Ways to Make Quadro Even Better

I am quite happy with the February Quadro release, as I describe in New Quadro Release - Nice Improvement.



But, being me, I see ways to make it even better.





First, I really wish that  Quadro could work on a private link between Quadro device (iPhone, iPad, hopefully soon Android) and the device that is being controlled (Mac, Windows).   For security if nothing else.



But I also want Quadro when "roaming", e.g.  at a restaurant, using my iPhone's "personal hotspot" to allow my MacBook laptop to access the Internet.     (At the moment, after 8 hours of trying, I have not been able to make Quadro work on a "personal hotspot" connection, no matter whether USB cable, BlueTooth, or wifi between iPhone and MacBook.  I have only ever been able to get Quadro to work on a "frontside" network.   Since my main use for Quadro is email, making email reading tolerable, and since I mainly read email while roaming, away from my desk, not being able to use Quadro while roaming is a pain. Almost a deal-breaker.)



You really do need to explain whether and how Quadro is secure.   I cannot recommend that other people use Quadro until I can assure them that it is secure.



The new Quadro release still suffers the problem with "bouncing": Problem: Often "bounce" when hitting a group, also hitting button at same position in group entered.  This is a bad problem.  I have learned that I have to have an empty space in the group, I am connecting to, at the same position as the button that gets there.  This is a pain, making it hard to create a set of pads that connects to manty different groups.   I am almost ready to start "wasting" the top row of every palette.

(Pardon the colors.  Google's blogger edit is broken.)


I wish that I could copy/cut/paste and drag buttons/pads between groups/screens/palettes. I find that I often want to have the same button on multiple pads - like Undo, and also Enter (typically to select or conform some choice).


I would like to have   ↵ , the standard symbol for "Enter" or "Carriage Return"(U+21B5, HTML entity ↵) in the Quadro icons list - since I have found that I need to place it on many groups/screens/palettes.

The ability to design my own icons and artwork would be nice.  The icon set that Quadro provides, even to people like me who have paid 50$ to be "Heros" and support Quadro development, is quite limited.  Although I suppose that Quadro may want to sell aadd-on packages.  (Hmm, perhaps I should look for these resources inside the Quadro app.)




My original request for palette "overlays" still stands - even more so, now that I can get more buttons/pads per palette/group/screen.


Now that I am editing palette systems I set up a few months ago - I really do need to be able to version control and diff them, etc.


Now that I have more room, I am starting to create "button groups", such as

• Generic Forward (fill in the To address)
• Forward to my wife
• Forward to my boss

I have been able to paste text into new dialogs/windows... but this requires waiting until the new window is open.   Quadro has time delays - better than nothing - and also gives us the ability to tap to end such a delay - very good.  But it sure would be nice to be able to do what AutoHotKey on Windows can do - wait for a window or dialog to open, as opposed to waiting a fixed number of seconds, which is probably too long or too short.


Creating many similar but slightly different, slightly non-trivial, buttons raises the importance of being able to cut and paste buttons and actions. between screens/groups/palettes.   Again, for people like me, text files would be best.


Now that I can put labels beneath icons even on really small 1x1 buttons, it reveals the need to have short labels for display, and longer text strings for flyover / press to get help.
     This should not be a surprise.   It is a pattern described in most good UI / UX guidelines.

I cannot reliably open Quadro's  “key selection keyboard” by swiping up.  I.e, http://support.quadro.me/docs/the-keyboard does not work. 

The only way I get it to work is to use auto-recall.   And auto-recall only works in text fields. 

I would love an ACTION to open the keyboard, so that the user can type something in a text box that Quadro did not recognize.  (What is that, a non-Cocia app?  Like, say, Emacs? Or anything X Windows?)


The way Quadro handles hot-keys, one at a time, may work fort Mac, but is clumsy for apps that use key sequences rather than chorded keys, ;ike Framemaker (or Emacs).