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What is a good keyboard for android?

I've been using SwiftKey for waaaaaaay too long. I shoulda switched when Microsoft bought them out.

But old habits die hard. And I love the skin I use.

Help they know everything I've typed on a phone. That can't be good for anyone.

Edit: Holy fuck everyone, thanks for all of the responses!

I went with Heliboard, and typing this, it looks like I have to change a couple more settings to get it like I had Swiftkey, but I already like it more.

The fact you can basically make your own skin by changing all of the colors of the keyboard is amazing.

Fuck microsoft's ai keyboard.

Heliboard for lyfe!

Edit edit: trying to delete my data from Swiftkey was INSANELY hard. I couldn't do it from my phone, so I had to login with a computer. They think they are slick.... Fuckers....

slazer2au ,

irregular expressions.

🅆🄷🄾 🅽🅴🅴🅳🆂 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚌𝚔 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝔂𝓸𝓾 🅒🅐🅝 ｔｙｐｅ 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 a͟ ̶h̶̶o̶̶s̶̶t̶̶a̶̶g̶̶e̶👏taker👏

doppydrop ,

Hell👏yes👏thank👏you👏for👏bringing👏this👏into👏my👏life

slazer2au ,

y̷̪͎͙̣̠̪̅͆̕͝ͅọ̷͒̍͟ͅų̸̮͎̞͙̣̥͍̽̌͒̉͋͊̽̆̽̋͘͡͠r̸̡͈͈̬̬̹̭̹̍͗̐͂̑͛̅̄̕̕͘͠ ̷̨̙̩̘̩̰̀͋͜w̸̗̖̺͖̫̐́͋̐̀̈́̋̓̕͠ę̶̡͎͉̪̰̲̼̠̭͓̳̀͐̀ͅl̶̰̺͚̫̦̍́̓̐̅̈́̓̂̑͝͝͝c̵͖̞̀̈́͋̓́̓̌̓̋̕͘͠ò̴̫̰̬̮̗͓̻͚͛́͘͟ṁ̷̳̣͔͖e̶̖̝͎̞̅̓̾̍̉́͌͆͝ ̸̳̜̳̥̠͍̲̠̣̈́̾̍͗̌͂͑̚͝m̸̧̛̳̠̦̩̱̞͎̝̯̲͚̜̬͗̓̄̓́̈́̾̾̈́̊̽ͅa̸̧̨͖̼̦͉̲͛̾́͋̌͑͌̽̚͝t̴̝̦̘̞͇͖̪͔̙̠̲͈̀̒̒̋̇̎̔̄̂̇́ę̸̧̼̮̭͉̼͔̮̥̗͇̟̥̤͛̐̉̾͗̓̆̇͛̀̚͘͟

CosmicApe ,
@CosmicApe@kbin.social avatar

Ȳ̷̡̀͊͌̒o̶̢̝͂u̷̮̦̙̫̭̎'̵̪̳͔͙̫͖̓̒̒̑̊̃̉r̵̜͎͂̉̋̔̍͂͘͝ë̸̳̭̬̖́̌̆̐̅̚*̸̫̙͉͒̊̾͒̂͂̈́͝

slazer2au ,

f̑̇̈ȗ̇̈c̑̇̈k̑̇̈

billgamesh ,

Simple Keyboard on fdroid. Others have more features, but I can't switch. The swipe delete and swipe to move cursor are so smooth and I can't make any other keyboards work as well for me. I wanted florisboard to work, but it just felt clunky

shreddy_scientist ,
@shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml avatar

Be sure to switch as soon as Fossify releases their fork of it, Simple Mobile sold out HARD! Thankfully the 2nd in command at Simple Mobile created Fossify and is releasing all the apps to keep everything open sourced.

billgamesh ,

Didn't notice that one. I'm using the first simple keyboard, from rkkr. Think the simple mobile one must be a later addition

eco_game ,

Do you mean the SimpleMobileTools keyboard or the "normal" Simple Keyboard?

Coming from the Samsung keyboard (and before that Apple), I'm quite dissatisfied with the cursor movement in most Android keyboards (including HeliBoard).

billgamesh ,

the latter

Caravaggio ,

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.dslul.openboard.inputmethod.latin/

glacier ,
@glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I use Heliboard: https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard

Trent ,

I've wandered through a bunch of them. Used to use Florisboard. Unexpected Keyboard is pretty good too. The Hacker's Keyboard for some stuff. Mostly these days Heliboard for general typing.

Doctorsnorky ,

I love the Samsung keyboard. It has a delete key

Lemongrab ,

Samsung and Privacy don't mix. Not worth it IMO to use a closed source keyboard if you care about privacy.

eco_game ,

While I do agree and have stopped using the Samsung keyboard, it does have many unique features that I still miss almost daily.

A few that come to mind:

  • a special text editing mode (select all to the left, right; turn select mode on and then move around with arrowkeys while selecting, ...)
  • visual resizing of the keyboard
  • "2D" cursor control (move cursor diagonally)
  • swipe spacebar left/right to change input method (while having spacebar cursor control enabled!)
Prunebutt ,

If you'd like to have a more ergonomical keyboard: thumb-key is way worth the learning curve!

moreeni , (edited )

+1 for the keyboard. I thought it was a meme app at first but it turned out to be way better than I ever expected. Written from Thumb-key BTW.

dessalines ,
@dessalines@lemmy.ml avatar

Thx! (I'm the main dev)

lemmyreader ,

You are posting in a privacy community confessing that you were long hooked on some keyboard for their shiny look and what not :-) What do you really want from a keyboard app besides privacy ?

Probably there is more privacy friendly ones in this long list : https://search.f-droid.org/?q=keyboard&lang=en

Have fun!

Aatube ,
@Aatube@kbin.melroy.org avatar

Swyping, the core functionality? And maybe one-finger mode?

ninjaturtle ,
@ninjaturtle@lemmy.today avatar

Check out HeliBoard on f-droid.

lemmyreader ,

Maybe you meant Izzy ?
https://android.izzysoft.de/repo/apk/helium314.keyboard HeliBoard does not appear to be in the main F-Droid repository unless I'm overlooking something.

ninjaturtle ,
@ninjaturtle@lemmy.today avatar

You are probably correct. Didn't check the repo.

Salix ,

It is about to be in official F-Droid repo very soon

https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/-/issues/2662

nosnahc ,
@nosnahc@lemmy.world avatar

Heliboard is just perfect

Evil_Shrubbery , (edited )

Yes, this.

Highly customisable, fast, multi language (so you don't have to switch), and you can even load in (a degoogled, but still proprietary) swiping library - so it swipes like gboard, looks however you like, it's fully local, and it's open.

Earlier this month they published 1.0 alpha but do install the 1.2 version from github for easier future updates (new signature): github/Helium314/HeliBoard.

SnokenKeekaGuard ,
@SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don't understand how to get the swipe library, could you link it by any chance pls.

TurtleTourParty ,

See how to enable glide typing in the FAQ:

https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard?tab=readme-ov-file#faq--common-issues

SnokenKeekaGuard ,
@SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Oh thanks so much, all worked out. I'm finally happy with my keyboard after like 2 years

DreadPotato ,
@DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz avatar

How do you get the auto correct / language support to actually work? It's less than useless for me, it hardly ever provides suggestions or corrects typos and doesn't recognise a lot of regular words. Adjusting the aggressiveness/confidence in the settings does absolutely nothing.

Evil_Shrubbery ,

Idk, it works for me perfectly (I assume you downloaded necessary dictionaries).

Maybe it's the learning type and still learning? I only ever added a few words to the dictionary and all of those are bcs I intentionally spell them wrong.

Also iirc you can set it to automatically add words to your dictionary after a certain number of times you typed it (eg if I type twice snailporn the third time should be suggested or considered while gesturing).

DreadPotato ,
@DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz avatar

I have, it's really not very good IMO. It's half decent in English. but it sucks ass in my native language, half the suggestions it's giving are completely wrong or nonsensical in the context of the sentence.

Evil_Shrubbery ,

My native language is pretty niche, and I have since remembered that I did have a few funny suggestions at the beginning, however I now dont really differentiate between Heli & g.
But the same goes for gboard & Swyft, it needs a few weeks at the beginning.

Also info about my use - I never have autocorrect on (only suggestions), mostly use gestures, and dont use the system personal dictatory but the one in Heli folders.

Yesterday I've uninstalled 1.0, installed 1.2, and restored a backup. Works just like before.

LiveLM ,

The Swype library really saved my ass, I was still holding onto Gboard because of it

boyi ,

I tried to switch to heliboard using multiple languages but its predictions is simply out of league compared to SwiftKey. Reluctantly, I switched back.

Nima ,
@Nima@lemmy.world avatar

I just grabbed it from your suggestion. my gods I forgot how nice it is to have a keyboard with autocorrect that works properly.

thank you very much. this is a fantastic little keyboard and I'm excited to finally replace Swiftkey. cause it's really been bad for a while.

thanks again 🙏

Nomad ,

Is has actually usable offline swype. With third party library though.

MadBob ,

I see that's a fork of Openboard, which I have, but I don't really use it because it keeps suggesting American spellings (sometimes alongside British spellings), and my thumbs are too mighty to use a mobile phone keyboard without the suggestions. Would you happen to know if Heliboard fixes this?

N4CHEM ,

I have Heliboard set to English (UK) and it suggests British spellings (highlighting the American ones as typos), so I think you should be good. However, I'm not sure if the spellings come from my phone's system or from the keyboard...

I would nevertheless recommend trying it: it has some very nice improvements over OpenBoard and is under active development, so you could request new features or report bugs and expect them to be taken care of.

MadBob ,

I'm convinced!

nevetsg ,

Hello, I have search F-Droid app and get no results for Heliboard. Any idea what I could be missing?

ninjaturtle ,
@ninjaturtle@lemmy.today avatar

You have to look in the Izzy repo.

https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/helium314.keyboard

nevetsg ,

This worked perfectly, thank you.

padge ,

I found it on Obtanium which you can get from the f-droid store

nevetsg ,

Ha! Inception FOSS stores.

MapTheft ,

Been using Florisboard for a while. It is the most like gboard, although the swipe typing is not as good. All in all though, I'd still recommend.

Gnorv ,

Ay, also am using that one

jabathekek ,
@jabathekek@sopuli.xyz avatar

Unexpected Keyboard on f-droid.

knightly ,
@knightly@pawb.social avatar

Florisboard on f-droid is pretty ok.

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