I use Gboard.
The main things I like about it are:
- Very customizable (I like having number row always visible, and having long press for symbols on each letter).
- Has gif support built in.
My biggest pain point is:
- It auto corrects words that are spelled correctly to other words. I type “our” and it changes to “out”, I recently typed “purpose” and it changed it to “purple”. Autocorrect is awesome and necessary, but I hate that it corrects words to other words and not just typos. I wish I could find a keyboard that has the things I like without this annoyance.
Am I looking for a unicorn? Let me know! 😄
As soon as FUTO gets a split layout, I’m definitely switching over, if for no other reason than the slider for how aggressive auto correct is. I’m so sick of Gboard constantly correcting the word I meant with one that doesn’t make any sense.
I love Heliboard it is a fork from Openboard. It has themes and is 100% offline
It’s there a better swiping library for heliboard? The one they suggest is a lot worse than gboard’s.
That’s odd, it should be identical. The library linked in their FAQ is a package extracted from Google apps.
Maybe it’s an old package? The quality is noticeably worse.
I don’t use swiping, I have no clue 😅
Haven’t used heliboard so I’m not sure if its different but have you tried this one?
Does it have the things I called out as liking about Gboard?
- Customizable, yes
- Gif, no
Got it, thanks!
Nice. That’s actually even more customizable than I need. How does it do with the correcting correctly spelled words thing?
I’ll have to check this one out I think. Lots of people in here recommending it. I’m guessing it’s not on Google play?
Is Fdroid like a third party app store app or something? I see people talk about it a lot on here but I don’t know what it is.
No, it’s on F-Droid, which is better.
Did you know you can turn off autocorrect?
I’ve been using Swype since its inception and I’ve stuck with it after it was called SwiftKey and still use it now it’s owned by Microsoft.
Gboard is okay enough but I’ve gotten more used to SwiftKey.
I like autocorrecting typos, I don’t like autocorrecting words into other words. As far as I’ve found you can’t have one without the other. Correct me if I’m wrong though.
No that’s correct. It cannot distinguish between typos and different words
It’s a shame. It doesn’t seem like it would be hard to implement one that doesn’t change correctly spelled words at all.
Well SwiftKey advertised with some AI (actually just algorithm) that could analyse the words you typed before and glean from context what you are trying to say and correct accordingly. I find it’s wrong more often than not so I keep autocorrect off. Also I use SwiftKey in two languages, English and my native language, Dutch. It does not anticipate in which language it should predict at all. It mostly just favours English.
Yeah that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want. If I wrote a word and it’s spelled correctly, I wish autocorrect would leave it alone instead of incorrectly guessing a different word. Oh well, one can dream.
If you type the wrong word, it will underline it and you can click on it, then tap on the correct auto suggested word. Very easy
No way to know if you meant to typo type or typo
Same, been using it long before it was bought by Microsoft. It has customizations I like, and (when it works properly) I can copy and paste between my phone and computer.
That sounds like a really nice feature (the copy between devices). Does it have gifs built in?
Yeah
Try Heliboard
It is a fork of openboard. Openboard is basically dead
I like correction of typos and prediction, I just don’t like correcting words into other words. I haven’t found a way to have one without the other. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Multiling-o keyboard might fit the bill.
Cool I’ll take a look. Thanks!
are there any good ones for dyslexics? I hate SwiftKey but have yet to find anything that helps with spelling. I know I can use voice to text but sometimes you don’t want speak to your phone in a crowded place.
Gboard but with network permissions turned off. Works great. Haven’t had any issues with an autosuggest and swiping. I don’t use autocorrect.
I’m surprised to hear that it doesn’t get angry at you!
Probably ignores the setting
Android and gboard both made by Google. I suspect there are exceptions to any system setting. What with google being evil… Sorry i mean, what with the “one rogue engineer” at google who creates so many google agreeable faux pas.
Just recently installed Gboard, because stock Samsung keyboard is so trash it gives me headaches.
Unexpected Keyboard
https://github.com/Julow/Unexpected-Keyboard
Available on F-Droid
You can pretty much configure the whole layout. Not sure about gif support though.i used to use touchpal, because I liked that I could swipe up on a key to get the upper case version of the letter, or swipe in other directions to get other variants.
They enshittifies the product a few years back by inserting ads into every app i was using.
These days i just use the android default, but I miss the functionality touchpal had.
Software is in such a sad place these days. Everything is in a constant state of decay it feels like.
AnySoftKeyboard.
It has a various styles, and a neat way of switching languages and their layouts.
Does it have the features I called out that I like about Gboard?
I guess it ticks quite differently than gboard (which I don’t use). It is very customizable, even with add on modules.
I don’t use many of the options, though. I don’t like long press. No idea what you mean with GIF support.
The autocorrect usually asks whether I accept the correction or not.
Cool thanks for the response. Gif support is a button that lets you search and insert gifs from giphy. I use it a lot because I like memes 😅
It’s customizable, though you can’t, say, arbitrary drag keyboard keys around on an Android device. There are add-on layouts, and it’s possible to create those.
I don’t know what “GIF” support involves. It has some support for various Unicode emojis. If this is some sort of Android-native rich text field functionality to embed arbitrary image files, not that I’m aware of, but I may also just not use any apps that support it…I think all the apps I use may just edit regular text.
It does not support swiping, something that I don’t use but which some people do rely on.
The two most-significant things that it doesn’t do that I would like:
-
It does not have the ability to attach arbitrary macro text strings to a key (well, absent from creating a new keyboard, I suppose), something that I have wanted.
-
It doesn’t support the “drag on spacebar to move cursor in a text field” functionality that some Android software keyboards have.
Of the open-source keyboards, it’s the one that I find the best.
I believe – not in front of my device – that you can adjust the aggressiveness of text correction or disable it.
You can set it up to keep numbers visible.
I just don’t like correcting words into other words.
So, the normal way to deal with this – I don’t remember whether Gboard supports this, but I suspect it does, and Anysoft definitely does – is that autocorrecting keyboards don’t correct a word that they recognize as a word into another word. The thing is that they won’t recognize every word out there. So what you do is to create a “user dictionary”, and add your word to it. Then the keyboard knows that your brand name or technical term or whatever is a real word. With Anysoft, you see a list of corrections immediately above the keyboard, and you can tap on the word in its uncorrected form to add it to the user dictionary. You can go into the keyboard settings to view and delete or edit terms in the user dictionary. I don’t know about Gboard, whether this is an Android-wide convention or not, but with Anysoft, if you hit space after a word and get an unwanted correction, you can, before hitting any other keys, hit backspace and it’ll delete the space and revert the correction; you can then tap space again and continue with the uncorrected word, if you only want a single uncorrected word and don’t want to add it to your user dictionary.
Cool thanks for the detailed response. I don’t use swipe typing at all so that one doesn’t matter to me. Gif support on Gboard is you can press a GIF button and it lets you search and insert gifs from giphy. I like funny pictures, what can I say. 😄
-
I’ve been using SwiftKey since like, 2012?
I just like the custom keyboards, and it learns my mistakes when I swipe. I always carry 2 phones, so I was able to sync the 2nd phone so my swipes are already learned on that phone.
Also, there’s a snow keyboard that collect snow at the bottom of the screen as you swipe.
Has your autocorrect been getting worse? I use swipe and it seems to be mixing up words way worse than it used to.
Or am I just getting bad at typing lol
I’m fairly certain it’s getting worse.
Does it let you have it switch themes automatically when in day/night mode?
FUTO Keyboard. Its newer. Still needs improvements to gesture typing. Overall I like it.
Does it have the features I called out that I like about Gboard?
I don’t think there is a free/private keyboard with gifs or stickers. There’s gboard, SwiftKey, Samsung keyboard, and increasingly sketchy keyboards from there on down.
Fleksy has gif support built-in. It’s the only one outside of Gboard and SwiftKey that does afaik
Samsung does, and lots of others. But IMHO, they get pretty sketchy pretty quickly. Ginger has 12 known trackers, Bobble AI has 8, GO has 17, etc.
I’d be happy to pay for one if it was good enough.
Oh, I meant free as in not proprietary. Free as in freedom.
I remember hearing about Fleksy keyboard years ago, although I can’t really attest to it. It seems to have far fewer trackers than most proprietary keyboards, and just for analytics. Most other keyboards you find will send your data to advertisers or worse.
So far, most of the ones suggested here are free and private, meaning that they belong to the community and not to a company, and they do not collect or sell your data. That may be a factor for you or it may not, but I think a lot of people on Lemmy tend to care about it.
The only thing I’m missing is the ability to use multiple languages at once.
It’s pretty easy to switch, es posible cambiar con una toca. You can map it to a long press or swipe or use a dedicated key.
How would you like to switch between them? I use 3 regularly with different layouts and I’ve never had an issue. For me, a keyboard swipe is quicker than a long press and tap to select, or a tap on a single button. It could be any of the above. You can also have the switching button in the top menu or by the space bar.
Is there a better switching method for you?
Sorry, swiping right or left on the spacebar in this case.
I’ve heard people say that the gesture typing is not great, but I’ve never had an issue.At least not more than any other keyboard.
For me, the voice typing is literally the best I’ve ever used.
I don’t think there is a free and private keyboard that has gifs, stickers, etc. but I do like the way FUTO handles emoji.
