FOSS keyboard under active development? (Android)

Free and Open Source Software@beehaw.org – 41 points – 11 months ago

I have been looking all day for a FOSS keyboard that's under active development. It seems like more of not all of the ones I've seen recommended haven't been updated in over a year some three years. I don't mind if it's a long time between updates but I want to know bugs will be fixed eventually.

FlorisBoard is great! It's not had a release in about year but that doesn't mean it's not under active development. The developer is currently working on the Natural Language Processing component.

+1 for Florisboard. Patrick is diligently working on the NLP. Currenlty it is in phase 2 which is also the most important and the most challenging.

In the meantime, if someone wants the Material You version of Florisboard that visually resembles Gboard, you can check it here

Just downloaded it to give it a try! So far missing autocorrect a little bit, but, honestly, I'm optimistic about how the keyboard can improve my typing (and diction). Much slower but also more well thought out. Auto lets you type fast, maybe too fast.

I will have to get used to typing apostrophes again though...

I had to stop using it for now. I need the autocorrect bad. I'm using a build of open board I found that has swipe for now until Floris updates.

Unexpected Keyboard it was originally made for termux but it works perfectly outside of it

I was really confused at first (new to this community), but they seem to be asking about a FOSS mobile keyboard for Android.

Sorry. I should have specified.

Open board has an active fork here: https://github.com/Helium314/openboard

It has typing suggestions, backspace and space bar gestures, and now some custom theming. Though it does have a weird bug with backspace behavior in the jerboa app- so does the original openboard and aosp keyboard that openboard is based on.

Its not available on f-droid, though hopefully that'll change in the future, but you can install the apk from the releases tab on github, or you can use obtainium to do that for you and it'll let you know when there's a new release

That jerboa backspace issue could be a jerboa bug. I have noticed the same with another keyboard, but not on any other app.

Yeah, I'm not actually sure where the issue is. It only happens for me with openboard, but also only happens in Jerboa. It seems more likely a jerboa issue since it apparently also happens with the AOSP keyboard that openboard is based on, but the distinction may not matter to someone who's just looking for a good keyboard app

I've been meaning to open a bug report in the repo for openboard and jerboa so it can get sorted, but haven't done so yet

Can confirm AOSP also has a weird backspace bug (seems to remove spaces from previous words in the sentence) but I've only noticed it in Jerboa. Also while typing this, so if you can please report it.

I am enjoying learning how to use the thumb-key:

https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key

I see a lot of potential in it. I miss the escape, control, and the alt keys, and a partial select (in addition or instead of the 'select all') would be nice. However, for all the bread and butter typing, it seems great to me now.