this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Every year or so I try one or more privacy focused keyboards. I always end up right back on SwiftKey after a couple of weeks because most of the keyboards I try have the same problem: the predictions suck.

Ok, I get that surveillance is good for predictions. Put another way, predictions are tough without collecting everything everyone types. Is there a best-of-both-worlds keyboard out there? I'd be patient enough to give it some time to learn how I type and get better.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Closest I got was Florisboard because of the customization options

The main things I'm looking for (in order) are

  • predictions
  • better support for emojis and gifs
  • built in translations

Google Keyboard works really nicely and it's hard to give up on some of that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you link me? Searching it in the Play Store turns up some weird results.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

This sucks. What kind of suggestions are these?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

The dev is implementing his own word suggestion engine. It will take time before it's properly implemented.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Suggestions aren't a thing in Florisboard yet. Still a WIP.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

ok yep that's pretty terrible

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If you need word suggestions use OpenBoard. If you dont, Florisboard is king.

I always turned off these "you cant type and I know it better anyways" suggestions. Also bilingual + colloquial is not great

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

confused mechanical keyboard noises

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

yes, OP should have specified for Android.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I like AnySoftKeyboard but it also doesn't have great predictions. They're very customizable though, so maybe you can get something out of it?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

$20 on Google Play? Interesting.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I assume you must've tried openboard. What issues did you have with it? The predictions have been more than satisfactory in my experience.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn't seem to have swipe typing, which is important for me. Otherwise it's great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a fork that supports it, though it looks like it has become inactive, if you care about that https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

ahh, yeah swipe typing is really tough to inplement well without data collection. i used to use it a lot back before i completely degoogled and id be lying if i said i didnt miss it. i honestly just couldn't find any foss keyboards at all that had swipe typing!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have OpenBoard too and the predictions suck for me. What do you do that makes it not suck for you?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I use openboard and it does exactly what I want it to do: it displays characters I can type out myself. I don't use swipe typing, predictions or autocorrect as those never work well enough, usually exclusively giving shit suggestions or corrections. I also use three languages daily, so I'd have to constantly switch the keyboard language, if I had autocorrect/predictions/swipe turned on.

I do understand that my use case is not the norm, but I still wanted to give my two cents.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ah, okay, yeah if you don't use it I don't see it acting up on you. Lol.

What do you do that requires 3 languages? I'm genuinely curious.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am bilingual (non-english languages) and use those languages with friends and family. I also use English daily on social media etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Wow, that's amazing!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've been using it for like a couple years now. Lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I just installed it. I'll give it a shot. Seems like something I probably tried years ago and decided I didn't like it.

[–] Skimmer 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure how it hasn't been said yet, but I really like Helium314's OpenBoard fork. Can't recommend enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I end up back on SwiftKey because ios stock keyboard doesn't have an option for a persistent number row. That's literally all I want.

Open to suggestions. Would LOVE to not have to have a fucking bing button and be letting Microsoft creep my shit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude I'm surprised that iOS even lets you pick a different keyboard than the default

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

They actually didn't for many years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It annoys me that I can't long press for punctuation on iPhone SwiftKey, like I could with Android. Also, no comma button.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You can long press the period beside the enter button for some punctuation, though the swipe through that pop up after the long press is a little janky.

You can also long press letter keys for variations on that letter.

I'm typing this on an iPhone and I just tested both those things to make sure I wasn't lying to you lol. What feature is missing? Its been a few years since I used android regularly so I seem to have forgotten.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Android had a dedicated comma button... I think where the mic button is by the space bar. And on Android you could press and hold letters for punctuation, not just accented characters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Aha fair enough. I had forgotten about that comma button, but it does sound handy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Every years or so I try out a bunch of alternate keyboards. Then I go back to using Gboard. {sigh}

I've been using swipe typing for years and I just can't get by without it. None of the privacy oriented keyboards do it well enough to really be usable yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Almost exactly my situation, expect predictions over swiping and Swiftkey over gboard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Used to use Openboard but honestly swipe typing is actually good. So I went with Gboard with internet access turned off.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

OpenBoard supports swipe typing and uses a Google library to enable it, so it's pretty much exactly the same as Gboard.

https://github.com/openboard-team/openboard/issues/3

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AOSP keyboard also supports swipe typing when the right library is in place, but I don't think you can get it without flashing a new ROM or via root access.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm starting to like Thumb Key. It may have the hardest learning curve I've ever seen, but it's highly configurable, the developer is super active, and it has a ton of nicely implemented features. I feel as if it'll be like vim: hard to get up to speed on, but once the muscle memory takes hold, I'll be extremely productive with it.

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