this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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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....

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[–] ninjaturtle@lemmy.today 60 points 7 months ago (15 children)

Check out HeliBoard on f-droid.

[–] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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@lemmy.today 10 points 7 months ago

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

[–] Salix@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

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

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

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

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@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] TurtleTourParty@midwest.social 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 7 months ago

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

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 5 points 7 months ago

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

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[–] nosnahc@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Heliboard is just perfect

[–] Nima@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

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 🙏

[–] boyi@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 7 months ago

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

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[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Here's one I made, called Thumb-Key. No internet permissions, made to be private.

[–] GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml 17 points 7 months ago

Darn it, I popped into this thread to suggest Thumb-Key, and was beaten to it by the maker of the keyboard!

Thank you for making my phone usage much faster and enjoyable (written using Thumb-Key of course!) :)

[–] Muun@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I use this after messagease suddenly decided to charge a subscription fee.

It's pretty darn close in functionality. Highly recommend taking the time to learn it.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thx! Ya the main reason I made it, was because messagease development died, and all my emails to the messagease team (their only contact email) went unanswered for like 2+ years. So it seemed like a good opportunity to do a from-scratch open source rewrite.

[–] Muun@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I actually forked your code so I could customize the keyboard a little bit. I was impressed that I didn't have any problems building the thing right away. Doesn't always happen for me with open source projects.

One thing that was driving me nuts was how sensitive the swipe gestures on the spacebar are. I guess my thumbs always do a slight swipe when I'm pressing space and it was moving the cursor position on me. I wiped out all of that code. If you're taking suggestions, a way to disable swipe gestures on the spacebar would be a cool add. I'll see if I can get together a PR for it as well and be a part of the solution.

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[–] N4CHEM@lemmy.ml 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)
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[–] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I would recommended you HeliBoard (an OpenBoard alternative with some enhancements like multi language typing) https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard

[–] bluespin@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Thanks to you and everyone else in this thread that recommended HeliBoard. It's excellent

[–] Broken@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the recommendation. I see there's gesture typing support if you load a library. Which one do you use if any?

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[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Heliboard seems decent so far.

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

irregular expressions.

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

[–] doppydrop@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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

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[–] MapTheft@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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@feddit.de 3 points 7 months ago

Ay, also am using that one

[–] Asudox@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

FlorisBoard beta is very nice. Mine looks very nice.

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[–] Trent@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

Ima be honest, I just use Google Keyboard but disable the its networking for the app.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] moreeni@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

+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@lemmy.ml 9 points 7 months ago

Thx! (I'm the main dev)

[–] glacier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 7 months ago
[–] wazzupdog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 7 months ago

I like florisboard, it's fairly customizable.

[–] billgamesh@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] eco_game@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago
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[–] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I'm also a Swiftkey holdover, trying Heliboard now..

Is there a keyboard that can do haptic feedback while typing and enable multiple languages at the same time? These two features are really missing for me.

[–] N4CHEM@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Heliboard can do multilingual typing, and I believe there is some kind of haptic feedback... I don't use that function, but it was mentioned in the latest release notes

[–] beSyl@slrpnk.net 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How does it do multilingual typing? You have to change the input method, right?

[–] N4CHEM@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Not necessarily: you can choose to have several languages separated as different input methods (you can switch between them very quickly by sliding vertically from the space bar) OR you can go to "Settings / Languages" and select one of your active languages and inside its submenu add languages for multilingual typing. This way when you select that original language as input method it will use and recognise all the languages you added at once. I must say this can be tricky with glide typing, but still works pretty well.

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[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Unexpected Keyboard on f-droid.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 5 points 7 months ago

Florisboard on f-droid is pretty ok.

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[–] backhdlp@iusearchlinux.fyi 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I use AnySoftKeyboard (fdroid github website). It has quite the amount of customizability. I like that there are arrow buttons to navigate text better.

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[–] someoneFromInternet@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago
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