FOSS keyboard under active development? (Android)

Soullioness@lemmy.ca to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 70 points –

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3468141

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.

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FlorisBoard has been a great keyboard. The last proper release was over a year ago but the developer is actively working on a big update which will add word suggestion.

Thumb-key by one of the developers of Lemmy. It takes some getting used to but is my favorite at the moment. Updates seem to be around once a month.

Wait, is this a clone of Messagease? I was hoping to find something like that because I love this type of keyboard but I was worried that it hasn't received updates since 2020.

It says it's mainly inspired by MessageEase in the F-droid description. It uses a custom character layout, but you can change to the MessageEase layout in the settings.

Unfortunately, it doesn't support customizing the layout like MessagEase.

I like it but it's very hard for me to type this lol

you can use this? Like as a primary keyboard? It's cool though!

AnySoftKeyboard has beta releases once a week, although idk how well they work. I've been using the stable version for years and I like it (although the autocorrect can be a bit silly sometimes).

UnexpectedKeyboard is the coolest and lets you easily type (what feels like) every single UTF-8 character imaginable lol. The typing feeling isn't as nice and I don't think there's any autocorrect though so I don't use it.

UnexpectedKeyboard is amazing. Changed to it after BlackBerry keyboard.

tho there's absolutely zero dictionary and prediction, the fact it has proper modifier keys like ctrl, alt, function keys alone takes the cake, but you can literally map any character to anywhere, and access even more by swiping on the keys.

I don't know how's the developnent, haven't checked for updates for a while, because I modified it a bit for my taste.

It's kinda on my list to fork it and add autocorrect, dictionary and prediction to it, unfortunately I don't have much time :/

I really like AnySoftKeyboard. It has a good features and is very customizable. It also has the best suggestions and autocorrect of any KB I have used.

Agreed. After you get the hang of it, it's amazing. So many special characters and most importantly: Glide Typing!

FlorisBoard used to be my keyboard, but a couple months ago I found the Unexpected Keyboard. Both keyboards don't have spell suggestion.

FlorisBoard didn't have update for almost a year, but the developer is still working on it. The Unexpected Keyboard had an update last month.

Between those keyboards I prefer the Unexpected Keyboard.

I tried Floris recently. It looks really promising, but I found the swipe input to be maddeningly frustrating - obscure words chosen over common alternatives etc. That was the reason I most wanted to migrate from Gboard. Alas. There's still nothing out there in this respect which beats the old Swype back in the day for me (though of course it wasn't FOSS).

Oh, I forgot about. I suffered from the same problem. It also happened when I tried swiping long words. I would get a completely different word or nothing at all.

Lol. The unexpected keyboard had a release commit 8h ago :D

Like, QMK?

I like my moonlander if physical keyboards is the question

For anyone who didn't read the linked cross post: he's looking for FOSS Android on-screen keyboard.

I tried several and settled on the open board fork that has swipe typing.

I was very confused as to why you would need regular updates of, say, a SofleRGB, then I opened your links.