EDIT: Thanks, guys! I ended up downloading Heliboard from f-droid :)
I’ve been down this rabbit hole and here’s the haul from Wonderland:
Conventional:
- Heliboard - Has glide typing, but the available library is unstable and old. The most polished.
- Florisboard - Currently under heavy development, but what’s there is more than usable and very well done.
- Unexpected Keyboard - I actually love this one, but as a Fold user I need some auto correct. Uses swipe motions on each key for symbols and punctuation.
Unconventional:
- Thumbkey - A 3x3 grid using taps and swipes to type. I flip flop between this and Heliboard atm. Has circular motions to input caps or numbers. MASSIVE amount of layouts, including language, programmer, writer and more. Easy layout switch key on the fly.
- Flickboard - Same setup as Thumbkey. This would be my go to ever since they added a landscape layout that smart switches on inner Fold screen, but there’s no separate key height for it, so you have to deal with non-uniform on one screen which isn’t easy to type on. Also has circular motion for caps. No numeric, but there’s the option of having a small number column.
- 8vim - The only one of it’s kind since 8pen died. I’m learning this one and it’s great, but wonky on inner Fold screen. Its hard to explain, but you use circular motions around on X wheel to input whole words at a time letter by letter. Start center, drag out into a quadrant, rotate to get your letter, go back to center, without lifting go to your next quadrant for the next letter. When you’re done and back on center, let go to insert space, or you can move out into a quadrant then lift to end without a space. Takes a lot of getting used to.
U have nerfed my typing speed by 99% with thumb key. Its fun tho
Lol I know the pain. It takes a few days to get to acceptable typing speed, but you can get pretty fast (some report 56 wpm which is pretty good for a virtual keyboard).
Just make sure you know what you want between Thumbkey or Messagease layouts. I started with Messagease layout and it was all good until I spotted some really nice Thumbkey programmer layouts and switched.
Gonna stick with it for a bit, and check the other one out. Some words are already coming out quicker. Thanks for the tips
Do you also know if any of them support multi language spell checking?
Heliboard has multiple dictionary support. Florisboard is still in development for this feature, from what I know. Unexpected Keyboard has none by design, being made for termux and programming.
The unconventional list also has none by design, maybe because there’s less of a chance to fat thumb the keys.
Heliboard would be your winner there, for now.
Thanks, I’ll try it again
EDIT: It works well
ive been using heliboard for a while now. no complaints.
Florisboard beta is what I use. Extremely customisable. I think the biggest things that lacks are custom background photo and text-gliding (I ~dont use any of these though).
I made it almost identical to the gboard theme I was using previously and it’s so cool.
Best keyboard so far
Agree.
Wow, I missed the introduction of extensions, thanks! That’s cool
I am a big florisboard fan too, but I can not get autocorrect to work? How did you manage that? Also, I have glide typing, how do you not?
Oh, I don’t use any autocorrect.😅 Does it have one? I know it has autofill, suggestions with dictionaries and spell check, but not sure if it has autocorrect.
I have all of these disabled (I only have the auto-capitalization after a period and auto period after double space).😄
Wait, are you on beta? I think they have gliding, but it is only for gestures, not typing.
I don’t know, but Thumb-Key is written to by a core Lemmy developer, dessalines.
what a fantastic way to indicate my turbo nerd status to my friends and family!
Removed by mod
Thumb-key.
It takes a bit to adapt and create muscle memory but I can’t change it now that I am used to it.
yeah. Takes a bit to get used to but I now have less typos than on regular keyboards. 🙂
Preference for AnySoftKeyboard.
Why is there so many censored posts about keyboard apps?
there is a thread about the moderation of this thread here.
FlorisBoard
Openboard (fdroid)
I’ve actually tried everything that was recommended here, but AnySoftKeyboard still fits me the best.
I use Fcitx5 for its Chinese language support.
I used to use Gboard for Cantonese input. I downloaded fcitx5 reading your comment and tried it for some time. There are some features noticeably missing compared to Gboard.
- top numeric row
- single-hand mode
- simplified and traditional characters selection#
# Found it. It’s in the settings bar at the top of the typing area. Click it open and go deep inside it.
What Gboard and fcitx5 both don’t have for Jyutping input is glide typing. I wish fcitx5 have it because it is really what could make me switch and not look back. Gboard in general has better finger tap detection/correction because duh Google had more data to train on. But I will definitely start using fcitx5 because being open source is sufficient for me to switch.
For languages that isn’t supported by its plugins like Japanese, I have to keep using Gboard though.
I’ve been using heliboard for more than a year without any issues. Only think I don’t like is the lack of emoji search(?)
Dammit people stop asking this question I have 5 different keyboards now
Removed by mod
It’s trying and I paid for it. But the swiping accuracy is shit still, and it has limited language support.
You got my hopes up. All I want is a keyboard that has swiping and doesn’t ever auto-insert spaces. Unfortunately this ain’t it.
