In my search for good keyboard that support AMOLED mode, I found out about FlorisBoard which looks perfect to me. It even supports Halmak Keyboard Layout, which I didn’t expect to find at any Android Keyboard.
Which make me ask, How is this keyboard not popular?
I, for one, prefer Unexpected Keyboard because it has alt, ctrl, fn, and easy access to all the symbols i need for English and Portuguese. Sadly, it lacks some emoji, but i never used them much beforehand; just feel like i’m missing out lol.
the basic idea is that you tap a key, and drag towards an optional character you want to use, to enter it. here’s a preview:
There’s a very simple explanation to every “how is (niche technological thing) not more popular?” questions, and that is simply… Most people are perfectly happy with the defaults.
Don’t take this Fediverse instance and the people who interact with it as an example. Even Reddit’s tech subs are very niche serving, most of the responders will be people who live and die with tech… which does NOT represent the great majority of people.
Said great majority is perfectly happy with their phones as is. The default keyboard is 99% of the time perfectly usable. So people don’t even feel a need to change. Therefore niche keyboards will have very little popularity. Even big ones like SwiftKey.
I really like the ethos of Florisboard, but their spell check is just not in a state that makes it usable for me.
Most common letter E is too far right to be useful as single hand Typer (LH)
How big is your screen?
Maybe they have small hands AND a large screen to compensate. Don’t shame.
Its the short thumb being the issue, I buy the smaller phone screens on purpose
Ooh i see
I tried it, but ended on heliboard which has glide typing, Floris didn’t at the time
In addition to glide typing, Heliboard also has some of the best layout customization options out there, such as the option of disabling context-dependent menus. I HAAAAAATE how other keyboards change the keys available on the period key menu on URL bars. I use colons and forward slashes way more often than “.com”, which I use… well, never.
+1 to heliboard, I use dvorak layout
I’ve tried a lot of alternate keyboards, but I hadn’t heard of Heliboard. I just gave it a try and I really like it! Thanks for posting about it.
Wait, it can do that???
Yes, it’s the “Show TLD popup keys” setting under “Preferences”.
Oh, thank.
Heliboard is fantastic ❤️
- glide typing.
- multiple languages at the same time (without switching).
- extremely customizable in nearly every way.
- customize long-press options for each key with multiple / list of options. For instance, I’ve extended the number keys row with my most-used emojis, so holding ‘1’ gives me a pop-up with ‘❤️😍😘🥰’, 2 gives ‘🙂😊😃😄’, etc.
- ‘snippets’ via custom dictionary with shortcuts (typing ‘xx’ shows my primary email for 1-click insertion, ‘yy’ shows secondary email; endless possibilities). Possible with most keyboards, though.
- and so much more.
I haven’t found anything that comes even close.
I use futo keynoard ans I dind it to be a better experiemve
FUTO Keyboard is my favourite.
I think FUTO is very shady company from my reading about it.
I am not saying they are evil, but they are very sus.
I’m interested if you have to reliable links to share!
There were some on here yesterday
I tried it out recently but the gesture typing seemed way worse than heliboard
It does not use proprietary typing data. So, it can be slightly worse.
But, you can always contribute some data here: https://swipe.futo.org/
Oh that’s cool
That’s fair. I know nothing of gesture typing tbh. All I care about is that my apps aren’t spying on me.
They both seem to cover that fortunately
Do you know how to get voice recognition on heliboard?
Not something I have any interest in using, so afraid I’ve never tried it
Serious question: what problems does the default keyboard have that Florisboard is trying to solve? I’ve never looked at the Android keyboard and thought “I wish this worked differently,” except maybe when I switch languages by accident.
Privacy. I don’t need Google recording my keystrokes.
It depends on the phone’s brand. Samsung’s keyboard is way different from Motorola, for example. The other reasons would be the possibility of customization, and for privacy-minded people, as the keyboard is basically a very sensitive entry point
Got a shit tonne of experience with open source keyboards. Literally the only kind of app I can say I have good enough experience to have an opinion on and heliboard has hands down been the best.
I’ve become dependent on SwiftKey. Unfortunately, it’s invasive. I block network access on the app. It works great without it. It adjusts sensitivity and accuracy based on your typing habits, fixing mistakes over time that I make incessantly on other keyboards.
You can use gesture typing on HeliBoard if you upload the gesture typing library (you can get it from the repo).
I do not like gesture typing. I never have.
Why are you using SwiftKey then?
I literally explained it.
How is this keyboard not popular?
their front page explicitly says “Currently in beta state” and according to their docs installation via Google Play requires joining a beta tester group.
that means a random user searching “keyboard” on the Play store isn’t going to see it. likewise if a friend told you “I use Florisboard” and you searched for it by name in the Play store. if you’re not already in the beta test group the direct link to the app page literally 404s.
it’s certainly available to power users who already know they want it, but it’s sort of pointless to ask why it’s not popular at this stage of its development.
WEEEEELLLL that’s what Fdroid is for and my friends with android all already have fdroid because “youtube downloaders be there” is all I had to say.
They just like the google key
loggerboard.FYI, direct link fails for me
How did not anyone mention lack of autocorrect? Am I out of the loop how to enable that?
Try my oled theme.
It was on the florisboard theme page but the dev took it down because I made it in florisbord not in a repo
Heliboard has halmak too
Word suggestions/spell checking are not included in the current releases and are a major goal for the v0.6 milestone.
I’ve been watching Florisboard since before that text read “v0.5”. It’s a good keyboard but can’t be a daily driver for me without that.
![[Android] How is Florisboard not popular?](https://i.ibb.co/rfMhdd39/an8rulur-3-8.jpg){kind=link}