Text input via the Controller - question for anyone who has the Valve controller

[Cr3anmachin3]

After running Big Picture with an XBOX controller for a week now I'm interested in how different/easy it is to type with the Valve controller. I can see from Big Picture that they've gone for a sort of unconventional (in my experience) "flower" design for inputting text. My PC is located some distance from the TV and I don't have a wireless keyboard, so for me this is a dealbreaker. I need an easy way to input text via SteamOS or BP. From some of the info I read I believe Valve are trying to bridge the gap between gamepad and keyboard/mouse.
With XBOX I found myself resorting to Smartglass in frustration for typing. I thought perhaps the mooted touchscreen might have included an smartphone type keyboard for typing.
Any of the 300 beta testers care to comment on how the controller works in practice with writing text?

[KCPowerHouse]

The short answer? It is slow. It works about as well as you experienced with an Xbox controller. It is tough to enter text quickly or efficiently. It is the same entry method as on Big Picture mode. I was able to get fairly quick at it after quite a while but with a lot of mistakes.

The two areas that are frustrating for me are:

1. The circular placement is not easy to follow. There is a reason wby circular mazes are some of the hardest to solve. Our brains aren't set up to search that way.

2. The track pad is difficult to land quickly into the "quads" of text. I would often slide past the one i was aiming for. This could be solved though with a physical feedback bump as you transition though.

[MorgAnim_VFX]

Personally i find it hard to get used to at first but now i can chat fairly quickly with friends via stambox. But yea its still only as fast as you typing on a keyboard w/ one finger....i def prefer it to a virtual on-screen qwerty. because each letter takes an equal amount of time to reach. However it does not get anywhere close to the speed at which I can type with the keyboard ........The only thing is though...I feel like my typing with the daisywheel is getting increasingly faster the more I use it, which leads me to believe that the main thing is just getting used to it over time, just like one needs to get get used to typing a standard keyboard when you are a kid. hmm........It would be interesting to see if this daisywheel could be used for other applications,

[Cr3anmachin3]

Thanks guys, useful info. Iused daisY WHEel to write this...took ages LOL

[MorgAnim_VFX]

haha...it gets much easier, trust me. even moreso cuz ur not using a steam controller. I stayed using my steamtroller til I got used to it. kind of forced myself to do that for the sake of being a proper prototype tester...

[Cr3anmachin3]

yeah very difficult with xbox controller. I heard people are finding the left touch pad difficult in FPS games, i.e. not having a thumbstick to control constant movement. So how does movement work...do you have to constantly push your thumb again and again in the same direction?

[Scientist Dog]

Same problem here with the Xbox controller, I think I never will get used to.
I'm going to buy a mini wireless keyboard, not only for chating on Steam, also for using the computer outside Big Picture, and like a remote.

http://img.rakuten.com/PIC/51433502/0/1/500/51433502.jpg

[KCPowerHouse]

Originally posted by Cr3anmachin3:

yeah very difficult with xbox controller. I heard people are finding the left touch pad difficult in FPS games, i.e. not having a thumbstick to control constant movement. So how does movement work...do you have to constantly push your thumb again and again in the same direction?

The left touch pad has pointer functions just like the right, but for some reason, most games simply have WASD bound to it. So movement works exactly like it does with PC/D-Pad on a controller. The issue is that unlike a joystick with variable speed (move the stick more, you go from walk to run), the transitions on the steam controller between directions is very abrupt. On a keyboard it's not an issue seeing as you have 4 fingers hovering over the WASD at any given time, but the steam controller suffers in that regard a bit.