What keyboard do people find useful these days?
Gboard is getting visibly worse almost on a daily basis, especially autocorrecting perfectly legitimate words, presumably based on dubious analysis of other people's writing. So what's worth trying? The ability to swipe type is a big plus
HeliBoard. However for swipe typing it'll take some practice to get used to, it's more sensitive to swipe accuracy and you may need to reset your muscle memory.
How do you actually enable swipe typing? I have HeliBoard installed, looked through all the options, but it just doesn't. Pixel 8.
EDIT: It looks like you have to enable a closed-source swipe-typing library in Advanced settings at the bottom: "Load gesture typing library"
I see you already figured it out but for anyone who hasn't, you download a swipe library for heliboard Here by picking raw and then uploading it to heliboard in advanced settings>load gesture typing library.
I need to figure that out one of these days. I forgot to switch back to gboard if I really want to do that. I wish it was as simple as just enabling. But to go look up the procedure and what I need to download.
I'm not sure if you figured it out but for anyone who hasn't, you download a swipe library for heliboard Here by picking raw and then uploading it to heliboard in advanced settings>load gesture typing library.
Heliboard (with closed source swipe gesture library)
I've been putting up with Futo keyboard for privacy reasons even though it's not better than Swiftkey which has had the best predictions by far and had served well for many years
I am looking for a privacy friendly SwiftKey alternative, so I will give it a try. Seems like there is sadly not much alternative.
If you go with FUTO keyboard, do these as soon as you download it:
If you do these things, it will - eventually - figure out your typing habits. But it's worth it. I've been using it for a month or so and, outside of some odd quirks, it's working pretty well. Even has a clipboard manager and a "paste" button (for fat-fingerers like me), among other neat tools.
Oh, and don't forget to drop it into Obtainium so it can be updated, as it's not offered through any app store.
There are plenty of alternatives, they're just all terrible
You can help improve and contribute your swipe typing data by swiping some sentences on their website: https://swipe.futo.org/
Thanks for pointing this out, I just did 100 words real quick to help out! If FUTO development sees this, I'd highly recommend a link to that page built into the app, and some kinda encouragement to use it. I've been using FUTO for more than a year and never knew I could help out til today.
Are there any privacy considerations if swiftkey is restricted from internet access?
Been using FUTO FOR A CHILW ANF I DONT UAVE ANY COMPLAINTA REALLY
Yeah pretty much
I said a while back on Mastodon that people don't realise just how bad Gboard is. I don't understand how a company with so many resources sunk into machine learning can fuck up something as bread and butter as a keyboard.
I'm still gutted that Minuum Keyboard never got open sourced. It's the best keyboard I ever used.
Another vote for FUTO keyboard.
Except, the swipe feature really likes to autocorrect to the most outlandish words that have never entered into my vocabulary at any point in my nearly 40 years on this godforsaken planet.
FlorisBoard is open source and supports swipe
Thumb-key is also an interesting concept but very different with a higher learning curve
I tried it recently - no swiping. Maybe it's the language? Although it does say in the app it's been disabled.
swipe has always worked for me with florisboard
EDIT: kinda funny that I'm downvoted when I literally typed this comment using swipe functionality on florisboard lol
Oh, this looks good! Thanks
I put this in another comment, but you should see it, too:
If you go with FUTO keyboard, do these as soon as you download it:
- Turn on the machine learning feature for swipe typing (entirely local - nothing about the keyboard phones home)
- Allow curse words
- Make autocorrect your bitch, and I mean really force it
If you do these things, it will - eventually - figure out your typing habits. But it’s worth it. I’ve been using it for a month or so and, outside of some odd quirks, it’s working pretty well. Even has a clipboard manager and a “paste” button (for fat-fingerers like me), among other neat tools.
Oh, and don’t forget to drop it into Obtainium so it can be updated, as it’s not offered through any app store.
There's no comparison to GBoard. I've tried them all. GBoard is good at everything but specifically it is by far and away the best at text prediction and autocorrect.
Next best is FUTO keyboard.
Gboard never reached the level at which Swiftkey was at dual-language typing, at least for me. I'm Romanian native speaker and also use a lot of English. With Swiftkey I had almost no problems. With gboard I had to switch languages to make them work.
I'm surprised at how good Heliboard became lately at exactly this scenario. I have Romanian-English set and it works great.
I only speak 1 language so I'll defer to your expertise in that regard.
I find GBoard autoincorrect to be as bad as any other. I stopped using it because of that, and I've been on Android since 2009
Maybe you should try again, it's been improved over the last 15 years.
I tried many different keyboards but honestly nothing matched up to SwiftKey, now sadly owned by Microsoft, so I locked its internet access using RethinkDNS (or NetGuard)
FlorisBoard with the Material theme.
Tried many, but FlorisBoard's bugs bug me the least, not that there are many. The one feature I wanted was password manager autofill bar, FlorisBoard worked the best at the time and has been solid since. Material theme is nice too.
Thanks! Downloading now.
I'm using AnySoftKeyboard, which is open source and also has swipe controls
God, the autocorrect is horrible nowadays. Hey Google, team is a fucking word. No, I'm not talking about a team. Fucking figure it out.
Fucking Tram! Case and point.
I just wanted to say that, while Heliboard is a hell of a keyboard, I can't understand why nobody makes something close to keymonk keyboard. I never used a virtual keyboard that could get even close to that.
I've been a fan of Simple Keyboard for quite a while now. https://github.com/rkkr/simple-keyboard
I've been using Microsoft Swiftkey for years. Haven't had any issues with it.
I only have Hacker's Keyboard installed because it's the only one that's stupidly simple while also giving a full standard keyboard complete with function keys and whatnot so I have as much control over remote applications as I do messing with them at home on the actual machine with a real keyboard.
When possible, I use Swype. I have the apk, and it works on most things.
When that's not possible, florisboard or heliboard. Both can do swipe typing, though neither is as good at it as swype.
Wow I didn't know Swype was still around I used that WAY back in the day. Like android 4-5...
That's still a benefit of Android. As long as you have the apk of an app, there's usually a good chance it'll keep working.
There's even a patched version on xda of Swype that lets it work on most devices, even though it no longer matches minimum android versions in the last official apk. It's kinda funny, my phone still runs it fine, and it's on 14, but I have a tablet on 13 that it won't allow it without jumping though hoops that are a pain in the ass (but that's Samsung, and they're dicks about a lot of stuff).
8vim !
I'm a swipe typer and I'm sticking with open-board-gesture-typing-v1.4.5.apk, which is some kind of fork of gboard before it went totally off the rails. The only complaint I have about it is that it decided to stop capitalizing "I" for some reason and I haven't been able to fix it, so I have to hit the suggestion each time.
I didn't realize how bad Samsung keyboard was until now. Id forgotten I never changed it on my phone (I've had my phone for like 5 years) , even though I swapped to Gboard on my Samsung watch ages ago.
No problem at all with Gboard for me. In fact, it's the only one that can consistently do both German and Japanese for me.
I used yo use a keyboard called "hackers keyboard" then idk what happened but i uninstalled it. Used to be the best. Now i just use the built in one..
tOndO
FUTO, Thumb-key, and AnySoftKeyboard for me on different devices.
Tbh nothing comes even close to Gboard for me. The layout, the autocorrect, the simplicity, the swipe typing. Everything is perfect.
I find GBoard autocorrect to be as horrendous as all the others, so it offers no tangible benefits.
Openboard is the only good one on android
Sadly it isn't maintained anymore :(((
Heliboard is a close second but you can't increase the buttons' size
None, at least if you don't mainly use English.
I use Fcitx for Android for Japanese typing.
Though, sometimes I still revert to old Mozc Android release, which not updated by Google anymore for more than five years.
Seems pretty recent, I've been looking for Heliboard upgrade because it's not that great for other languages. Thanks for the mention
I said the same thing recently and am currently trying TypeWise! So far it's alright.