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…

    • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
      18·
      9 months ago

      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.

      • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
        5·
        9 months ago

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

      • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        9 months ago

        How do you get the auto correct / language support to actually work? It’s less than useless for me, it hardly ever provides suggestions or corrects typos and doesn’t recognise a lot of regular words. Adjusting the aggressiveness/confidence in the settings does absolutely nothing.

        • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
          2·
          9 months ago

          Idk, it works for me perfectly (I assume you downloaded necessary dictionaries).

          Maybe it’s the learning type and still learning? I only ever added a few words to the dictionary and all of those are bcs I intentionally spell them wrong.

          Also iirc you can set it to automatically add words to your dictionary after a certain number of times you typed it (eg if I type twice snailporn the third time should be suggested or considered while gesturing).

          • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz
            2·
            9 months ago

            I have, it’s really not very good IMO. It’s half decent in English. but it sucks ass in my native language, half the suggestions it’s giving are completely wrong or nonsensical in the context of the sentence.

            • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
              2·
              9 months ago

              My native language is pretty niche, and I have since remembered that I did have a few funny suggestions at the beginning, however I now dont really differentiate between Heli & g. But the same goes for gboard & Swyft, it needs a few weeks at the beginning.

              Also info about my use - I never have autocorrect on (only suggestions), mostly use gestures, and dont use the system personal dictatory but the one in Heli folders.

              Yesterday I’ve uninstalled 1.0, installed 1.2, and restored a backup. Works just like before.

    • Nima@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      9 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·
      9 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.

    • Bob@feddit.nl
      1·
      9 months ago

      I see that’s a fork of Openboard, which I have, but I don’t really use it because it keeps suggesting American spellings (sometimes alongside British spellings), and my thumbs are too mighty to use a mobile phone keyboard without the suggestions. Would you happen to know if Heliboard fixes this?

      • N4CHEM@lemmy.ml
        2·
        9 months ago

        I have Heliboard set to English (UK) and it suggests British spellings (highlighting the American ones as typos), so I think you should be good. However, I’m not sure if the spellings come from my phone’s system or from the keyboard…

        I would nevertheless recommend trying it: it has some very nice improvements over OpenBoard and is under active development, so you could request new features or report bugs and expect them to be taken care of.

    • nevetsg@aussie.zone
      1·
      9 months ago

      Hello, I have search F-Droid app and get no results for Heliboard. Any idea what I could be missing?

    • Go-On-A-Steam-Train@lemmy.ml
      17·
      9 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.worldEnglish
      8·
      9 months ago

      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·
        9 months ago

        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.worldEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          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.

    • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Thank you for making this!

      I really need to try making something for Android, looks like fun

    • Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
      2·
      9 months ago

      Hey! I tried your keyboard out when I was setting up my new phone - very cool and innovative idea!

    • Broken@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 months ago

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

      • N4CHEM@lemmy.ml
        1·
        9 months ago

        I followed the recommendation of the developer and installed the file from GApps packages (“swypelibs”). They provide a link in Heliboard’s README, scroll down to the FAQ section and look for “How to enable glide typing”

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    163·
    9 months ago

    irregular expressions.

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

    • doppydrop@lemmy.ca
      52·
      9 months ago

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

      • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        9 months ago

        y̷̪͎͙̣̠̪̅͆̕͝ͅọ̷͒̍͟ͅų̸̮͎̞͙̣̥͍̽̌͒̉͋͊̽̆̽̋͘͡͠r̸̡͈͈̬̬̹̭̹̍͗̐͂̑͛̅̄̕̕͘͠ ̷̨̙̩̘̩̰̀͋͜w̸̗̖̺͖̫̐́͋̐̀̈́̋̓̕͠ę̶̡͎͉̪̰̲̼̠̭͓̳̀͐̀ͅl̶̰̺͚̫̦̍́̓̐̅̈́̓̂̑͝͝͝c̵͖̞̀̈́͋̓́̓̌̓̋̕͘͠ò̴̫̰̬̮̗͓̻͚͛́͘͟ṁ̷̳̣͔͖e̶̖̝͎̞̅̓̾̍̉́͌͆͝ ̸̳̜̳̥̠͍̲̠̣̈́̾̍͗̌͂͑̚͝m̸̧̛̳̠̦̩̱̞͎̝̯̲͚̜̬͗̓̄̓́̈́̾̾̈́̊̽ͅa̸̧̨͖̼̦͉̲͛̾́͋̌͑͌̽̚͝t̴̝̦̘̞͇͖̪͔̙̠̲͈̀̒̒̋̇̎̔̄̂̇́ę̸̧̼̮̭͉̼͔̮̥̗͇̟̥̤͛̐̉̾͗̓̆̇͛̀̚͘͟

        • CosmicApe@kbin.social
          61·
          9 months ago

          Ȳ̷̡̀͊͌̒o̶̢̝͂u̷̮̦̙̫̭̎’̵̪̳͔͙̫͖̓̒̒̑̊̃̉r̵̜͎͂̉̋̔̍͂͘͝ë̸̳̭̬̖́̌̆̐̅̚*̸̫̙͉͒̊̾͒̂͂̈́͝

  • MapTheft@lemm.ee
    12·
    9 months ago

    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.

    • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
      1·
      9 months ago

      Also FlorisBoard is back in the game !

      Note: Due to various reasons development has been quite stuck in the past year, but things are slowly improving again and new releases/features will follow in the near future, please see the roadmap for details!

      florisboard

  • Trent@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    9 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.

  • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
    8·
    9 months ago

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

    • moreeni@lemm.ee
      4·
      9 months ago

      +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.

  • billgamesh@lemmy.ml
    7·
    9 months ago

    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

    • moon@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 months ago

      Spent a bit of time customising it when I got it, and it’s saved me so much frustration over the past year. Copy pasting, tabbing, having an undo via keyboard, moving character with an arrow. I enjoy typing with a touchscreen now. Would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly.