[HN Gopher] Unexpected Keyboard
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Unexpected Keyboard
Author : twoquestions
Score : 96 points
Date : 2024-12-10 13:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| Calculator++ is lovely, i like how it works. These swiping
| buttons especially usefull on small-ish screens.
|
| P.S. tried keyboard, should work wery well with termux. Did not
| figure out how to swith to next language. Custom keys, yay!
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| where's the link to Calculator++ ?
| uneekname wrote:
| It's listed as a "similar app" in the README. I think it has
| a similar feature where you can swipe on keyboard keys to
| type different characters.
| desireco42 wrote:
| I just installed it...mind blown. Thank you for posting this.
|
| Super easy to use... usual spelling errors are gone... would need
| a multilingual/serbian keyboard :) as well
| tetris11 wrote:
| I've been unsatisfied with Heliboard, so I might give this a try
| norswap wrote:
| See MessagEase for a similar keyboard (not programmer-focused)
| with less keys but letting you use the swiping motion to type
| ordinary -- great for fat-fingered people.
| kqr wrote:
| In a similar category we find also GKOS (uses chording to get
| the corner symbols) and I will always have a soft spot for
| KeyBee.
|
| https://entropicthoughts.com/rethinking-text-input-on-touchs...
| Nullabillity wrote:
| I'd call MessagEase-style keyboards good for programming too -
| no (need for) autocorrect, and the extra room lets you squeeze
| in most symbols and modifiers.
| CarVac wrote:
| Or Thumb-key, an open-source take on that.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| How long does it take to learn
| https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key ?
|
| Is it like retraining yourself to use Dvorak? Or more like
| learning the Palm strokes?
| bean-weevil wrote:
| I switched to dvorak a few years ago and to thumb-key this
| year. I would say that thumb-key is much easier to learn
| than dvorak. I simply switched to it and about three months
| later, I realized I had gotten up to almost my original
| typing speed without any directed effort. I originally
| typed at 45 wpm on AnySoftKeyboard, and now I type at 40
| wpm on thumb-key. This is in contrast to dvorak, which took
| six months of at least 15mins a day of dedicated practice
| time to surpass my original speed.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| See also FITALY[1] which was amazing on the Pocket PCs but has
| sadly (criminally) not made it to being an iOS keyboard.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITALY
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I've learned MessageEase, and it's great for that feeling of
| having a direct connection to what you're typing (no mistakes,
| and no annoying autocorrect messing you up), but I always found
| it slower than swipe-typing
| gavinhoward wrote:
| This was...unexpected...
|
| Unexpectedly good. I am definitely going to relearn typing on my
| phone just to use this.
| zuluonezero wrote:
| Thanks this seems very good. Being able to flick #! off the 'e'
| is nice. The position of . and , is a bit weird on the left of
| the keybord. But i do like the curser control and brackets usage.
| There is some buggy activity with capitals appearing eg
| ttt55555%%%%%TTT% randomly. And it misses autocomplete and auto
| capitalisation for general usec
| kqr wrote:
| I used to have a phone with a physical keyboard that had a ctrl
| key. I can't live without ctrl-z, ctrl-v, etc. This keyboard made
| it possible to go to a fully-touchscreen phone without being too
| miserable!
|
| (Although some level of misery is hard to get out of with only a
| touchscreen.)
|
| I have used this keyboard for over a year now I think and it's
| really good.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I have never felt the loss of ctrl+key combinations on my
| phone. For what do you use these things? For example, if I'm
| already using my finger to select text, I can just long press
| to copy.
| kqr wrote:
| But I'm not selecting with gestures! I press ctrl-a most of
| the time. Then I might adjust with shift-space-swipe, much
| like I would with arrow keys on a physical keyboard.
|
| I hate long pressing. It's so slow and imprecise.
|
| Ctrl-z to undo is an action usually not available from the
| context menu or elsewhere.
|
| Oh and pressing ctrl-d to send EOF in a subshell in Termux is
| much more convenient than typing "exit" or whatever.
| yellowapple wrote:
| I've been using this for a couple years now and it's been
| fantastic. Just the Compose Key support alone is a godsend. The
| swiping takes some getting used to, but with practice it now
| feels second-nature.
| stavros wrote:
| Do you not need astonishing precision to not make any mistakes?
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Just installed it now. I think it's missing the '2 spaces for
| period-and-space' feature but it seems pretty nice other than
| that! (I guess that makes sense for a programming keyboard
| though.)
| natebc wrote:
| > '2 spaces for period-and-space'
|
| I hate to be the one to break it to you but ... I think we're
| not supposed to do this any more? It's a change I still
| struggle with.
| winterbloom wrote:
| what's wrong with this?
| drdec wrote:
| I believe the GP meant that some keyboards will produce '. '
| when the spacebar is tapped twice.
| caxco93 wrote:
| now I can use this and try to be like this guy
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42374823
| guyzero wrote:
| Very innovative but it seems to require a level of precision that
| I don't think I've achieved on a phone keyboard.
| stavros wrote:
| Is there a keyboard that uses GPT-2 or some other such LLM to
| predict what I'm trying to write? SwiftKey is amazing because I
| can tap in the general vicinity of keys and it always writes the
| right thing, but it's fairly abandoned with a few perplexing
| bugs.
|
| I'd love to find a maintained keyboard that can predict as well
| as SwiftKey, and has all the other "simple" niceties SwiftKey has
| on Android (second layer with long press, configurable durations,
| customizable keys, emoji search, etc).
| bean-weevil wrote:
| [FUTO Keyboard](https://keyboard.futo.org/) uses a local LLM
| for suggestions and corrections.
| stavros wrote:
| Thank you!
| brunoqc wrote:
| I like the idea of their keyboard a lot, but I wish they
| didn't use that license.
| bean-weevil wrote:
| I don't like it either. I'm glad they started calling it
| Source First(tm) instead of incorrectly calling it open
| source though.
| troupo wrote:
| > Is there a keyboard that uses GPT-2 or some other such LLM to
| predict what I'm trying to write? SwiftKey is amazing because I
| can tap in the general vicinity of keys
|
| You don't need GPT for that, you need a dictionary lookup and
| some stats on how the keyboard is used. See how Ken Kocienda
| implemented the original virtual keyboard for iOS:
| https://hiddenheroes.netguru.com/hurst-han-kocienda Scroll down
| to "But as promising as the Purple interface was, the software
| suffered from a potentially fatal flaw: it was impossible to
| use a virtual keyboard on a phone-sized screen. "
| stavros wrote:
| Well, I know I don't _need_ it, but it 's still nice. I'm
| writing this with FUTO right now, and it's fantastic, it's
| correcting all my little mistypes to the exact right thing.
| Elfener wrote:
| I have been using this for a few years now. Has all the keys I
| could want. Actually makes ssh-ing from termux not a bad
| experience.
|
| My mom (not a programmer) uses it as well because she is able to
| type much faster with the swiping than with a regular touch
| keyboard.
| girvo wrote:
| Does anyone else remember the "TouchPal" keyboard on Windows
| Mobile?
|
| It was similar in some ways.
|
| https://i0.wp.com/farm3.static.flickr.com/2142/1622925926_3a...
|
| QW and a symbol were all on one key in a T shaped layout - Q top
| left, W top right, symbol below, you could just hit the key as-is
| and let predictive text/auto-correct do it's thing (badly, at the
| time).
|
| The more interesting way to use it was to swipe on the key in the
| direction of the letter/symbol you wanted.
|
| It was really quite good, and a shame it never caught on.
| tasuki wrote:
| I'm desperate for an Android keyboard! I need to type English,
| Czech, and Polish. We live in the age of LLMs, they not only know
| the words, they know how to use them together! Shocking!
|
| I'd like to use glide typing (slide finger to type). Yet all the
| Android keyboards I've tried (GBoard and Microsoft SwifKey) can't
| hint basic forms of words an elementary school child would know.
|
| Wrt Unexpected Keyboard, I find it tedious to type all letters
| separately on a touchscreen. Don't you?
|
| Help me!
| stavros wrote:
| Someone downthread proposed FUTO keyboard, I'm trying it right
| now and it's fantastic. Give it a shot !
| aftbit wrote:
| I used to use slide typing, but I've mostly reverted to
| tapping, at least the first 3 or 4 letters, until autocomplete
| can figure out what I want. I'm not really sure why, it just
| feels more natural.
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