by kqr on 12/12/24, 9:00 PM
I used to have a phone with a physical keyboard that had a ctrl key. I can't live without ctrl-z, ctrl-v, etc. This keyboard made it possible to go to a fully-touchscreen phone without being too miserable!
(Although some level of misery is hard to get out of with only a touchscreen.)
I have used this keyboard for over a year now I think and it's really good.
by a_e_k on 12/12/24, 11:42 PM
Interesting. I've been using the Hacker's Keyboard with Termux, but it doesn't seem to have received any updates in a long time. (I'm fine with programs being considered complete, but I also realize that Android is unfortunately a moving target.)
Has anyone used both and could compare them?
by stavros on 12/12/24, 9:41 PM
Is there a keyboard that uses GPT-2 or some other such LLM to predict what I'm trying to write? SwiftKey is amazing because I can tap in the general vicinity of keys and it always writes the right thing, but it's fairly abandoned with a few perplexing bugs.
I'd love to find a maintained keyboard that can predict as well as SwiftKey, and has all the other "simple" niceties SwiftKey has on Android (second layer with long press, configurable durations, customizable keys, emoji search, etc).
by eviks on 12/13/24, 2:53 AM
Great idea to allow multiple symbols per key, though it's not worth losing swipe over, so these should be behind a longer key press (hold for .5 sec then swipe to the corner ) or a double tap
Is they any keyboard that combines those and is also customizable?
The numbers should also be in a numpad layout, unfortunately common mistake even in custom keyboards
Also some keys in good central positions like sdf are surprising empty, could reduce the overload of other keys by shifting some symbols there
Wonder how convenient corner gestures are vs pure horizontal/vertical
by norswap on 12/12/24, 8:39 PM
See MessagEase for a similar keyboard (not programmer-focused) with less keys but letting you use the swiping motion to type ordinary — great for fat-fingered people.
by out_of_protocol on 12/12/24, 7:48 PM
Calculator++ is lovely, i like how it works. These swiping buttons especially usefull on small-ish screens.
P.S. tried keyboard, should work wery well with termux. Did not figure out how to swith to next language. Custom keys, yay!
by glacierSong on 12/16/24, 6:38 AM
I use keyboard with similar concept as this for more than 10 years. It uses a 3 by 3 key with additional column for control so like an old phone but swipe based. I like it because I can use 1 hand to write on phone. The application called MessageEase[0] before they go subscription based and now I use Thumb-Key[1].
[0] https://www.exideas.com/ME/
[1] https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
by yellowapple on 12/12/24, 9:02 PM
I've been using this for a couple years now and it's been fantastic. Just the Compose Key support alone is a godsend. The swiping takes some getting used to, but with practice it now feels second-nature.
by gavinhoward on 12/12/24, 8:40 PM
This was...unexpected...
Unexpectedly good. I am definitely going to relearn typing on my phone just to use this.
by Elfener on 12/12/24, 9:41 PM
I have been using this for a few years now. Has all the keys I could want. Actually makes ssh-ing from termux not a bad experience.
My mom (not a programmer) uses it as well because she is able to type much faster with the swiping than with a regular touch keyboard.
by girvo on 12/12/24, 9:57 PM
Does anyone else remember the "TouchPal" keyboard on Windows Mobile?
It was similar in some ways.
https://i0.wp.com/farm3.static.flickr.com/2142/1622925926_3a...
QW and a symbol were all on one key in a T shaped layout - Q top left, W top right, symbol below, you could just hit the key as-is and let predictive text/auto-correct do it's thing (badly, at the time).
The more interesting way to use it was to swipe on the key in the direction of the letter/symbol you wanted.
It was really quite good, and a shame it never caught on.
by arcanemachiner on 12/12/24, 9:08 PM
Just installed it now. I think it's missing the '2 spaces for period-and-space' feature but it seems pretty nice other than that! (I guess that makes sense for a programming keyboard though.)
by tasuki on 12/12/24, 10:10 PM
I'm desperate for an Android keyboard! I need to type English, Czech, and Polish. We live in the age of LLMs, they not only know the words, they know how to use them together! Shocking!
I'd like to use glide typing (slide finger to type). Yet all the Android keyboards I've tried (GBoard and Microsoft SwifKey) can't hint basic forms of words an elementary school child would know.
Wrt Unexpected Keyboard, I find it tedious to type all letters separately on a touchscreen. Don't you?
Help me!
by zuluonezero on 12/12/24, 8:56 PM
Thanks this seems very good. Being able to flick #! off the 'e' is nice. The position of . and , is a bit weird on the left of the keybord. But i do like the curser control and brackets usage. There is some buggy activity with capitals appearing eg ttt55555%%%%%TTT% randomly. And it misses autocomplete and auto capitalisation for general usec
by romulobribeiro on 12/13/24, 1:29 AM
I literally downloaded last week this keyboard to do the Advent of Code on the go
by 1209412comb on 12/13/24, 6:16 AM
This is similar to how Japanese use a 3x4 flick but the difference is that 1 word is typically 3-6 syllables where Latin is double the amount, also triple the amount of words per sentence.
by amake on 12/12/24, 11:55 PM
by rustcleaner on 12/13/24, 11:25 AM
It's great, just
NEEDS one thing:
Configuration export/import.
by ivolimmen on 12/13/24, 10:58 AM
I just installed it. And thus far: it makes sense. I need to get used to this one. Weird thing is: I don't mis the autocorrect other keyboards usually have.
by cynicalsecurity on 12/13/24, 9:01 AM
Nothing beats the privacy-oriented FUTO keyboard for me.
by desireco42 on 12/12/24, 8:10 PM
I just installed it...mind blown. Thank you for posting this.
Super easy to use... usual spelling errors are gone... would need a multilingual/serbian keyboard :) as well
by shwouchk on 12/13/24, 12:53 AM
Awesome stuff! I used to use Hackers Keyboard (up until … now!) but it’s not OSS, hasnt been updated, and i use the swipe even there.
Thanks for sharing!
[edit]
Even more for making!
by adakbar on 12/13/24, 1:26 PM
Thank you for posting, this is game changer, I have quite an old phone and this keyboard help me use it less unbearable
by guyzero on 12/12/24, 9:29 PM
Very innovative but it seems to require a level of precision that I don't think I've achieved on a phone keyboard.
by gitaarik on 12/12/24, 11:51 PM
Very nice keyboard. It would be so awesome if auto-complete and auto-correct would be added as optional features.
by watersb on 12/14/24, 3:40 AM
by tetris11 on 12/12/24, 8:35 PM
I've been unsatisfied with Heliboard, so I might give this a try
by mosquitobiten on 12/13/24, 5:06 PM
ThumbKey inspired Querty, that's cool I guess.
by neves on 12/13/24, 3:49 PM
Any keyboard with an undo button?
by caxco93 on 12/12/24, 9:08 PM
by hiked on 12/13/24, 2:39 PM
I love the small keyboard
by justsomehnguy on 12/12/24, 10:58 PM
Using it since
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32658104What doesn't work:
1. Ctrl/Alt isn't passed to RDP session in the official MS app.
1. Sometimes number input moves the decimal to a swipe and this is kinda... dumb.
It's not as fast as Hacker's Keyboard but overall it works good and I even did wrote some small things on it.
I replaced all HK with UK on all my phones and one tablet.
Can recommend.
by maguay on 12/13/24, 7:17 AM
Sad that a keyboard even needs to say that it's "privacy-conscious." What a world we've built, where one might reasonably worry that their keyboard _isn't_ private.
