Thumb-Key
On desktop, I use the [AI-designed Halmak Keyboard](https://youtube.com/watch?v=pZ40gmfDFfQ), and its had great results. Rather than manually picking letter positions, Halmak was designed by an evolutionary algorithm, based on a given set of criteria, and sample text. I designed the original english thumb-key layout manually, with trial-and-error, and based essentially on 3 criteria: - Letter frequency - Alternating thumbs - Thumbs come from the bottom corners, so lower and edge tiles are easier than higher. But I did not take into account things like digrams / trigrams, and I don't know enough about evolutionary algorithms to do it. Would anyone be interested in tackling this problem?
For some background, I'm a huge fan of alternative keyboards and layouts, I've been using florisboard since it got the nalmy layout and swipe typing, and switched to thumbkey shortly after it came out. I recently have been purging my phone of unused apps and even though I always use thumbkey, I ran out of low hanging fruit and decided to compare my wpm with thumbkey and the default qwerty grapheneos keyboard. Turns out, both are ~40-44 wpm, which is definitely good ([the average is 30](https://www.typingtest.com/benchmark.html)), but given that I've used thumbkey so long I was a bit surprised it was the same speed as a keyboard layout I've only used a handful of times in years (I don't use qwerty on desktop either). I just realized I haven't tested one hand mode, so I'll edit the post with those results, but it got me curious to see what other peoples speeds are with thumbkey vs qwerty. If you share, it would be also interesting to know how long you've been using thumbkey edit: one handed is where thumbkey really shines. Not only was it a lot more comfortable and smooth, it also hit 38 wpm, whereas qwerty was 27. Looks like thumbkey is here to stay on my phone, thanks for the great keyboard!
The drag-and-return feature is great (unfortunately the circular drag doesn't work at all in my phone). Am I missing something, but ... how do I capitalize a letter in the middle of a key with just the drag-and-return feature?
If I type a space followed by a quotation mark, the quotation mark replaces the space, making it difficult to type start quotes. And if I try to place an end quote directly after another letter, it will either modify the letter if it's a vowel to become an umlaut, or it won't type the quotation mark unless I first enter a space. If I disable spacebar multi-taps, then I can get around the issue by entering two spaces before a start quote and one space before an end quote, but with spacebar multi-taps on, the only way to enter a start quote is by pressing space, entering a quote, going back, and entering another space character before the quotation mark.
I am in love with thumbkey rn but my only grievance is that when I accidently swipe up on the space key it moves my cursor up a line and messes up my whole flow. I thought I saw that this function was removed in a previous version but my app is up to date and it still happens. Is there a secret setting I can't find?
I want to add a comma to the letter, but I don't know how I can do it(english layout).
Thumbkey is a great project for me. But I think that the issue of creating keyboards and variants should be more controlled perhaps by the creator. There are so many variants that it can be confusing at times. Who tells me that the Spanish version of Thumbkey that has moved keys over the original version is the correct one or even the original would not be better just adding the necessary diacritics and the ñ. Many may tell me: "Well, you create your variant and that's it," but with that there would only be another variant to confuse a new person who arrives. Perhaps over time a way to modify your keyboards locally could be added and perhaps share them if someone likes it similar to how 8vim does. But perhaps having every opinion on how the key layout should be in the official version as part of the official application is not the best idea.
Thumb-Key
!thumbkey@lemmy.mlAbout
Thumb-Key is a privacy-conscious smart keyboard, made specifically for your thumbs.
It features a 3x3 grid layout, as many older phones had, and uses swipes for the less common letters. Initial testing shows that you can reach ~25 words per minute after a day of use.
Instead of relying on profit-driven, privacy-offending word and sentence prediction for accuracy, as do most popular phone keyboards like Gboard and Swiftkey, Thumb-Key uses large keys with predictable positions, to prevent your eyes from hunting and pecking for letters.
As the key positions get ingrained into your muscle memory, eventually you'll be able to appromixate the fast speeds of touch-typing, your eyes never having to leave the text edit area.
This project is a follow-up to the now unmaintained (and closed-source) MessageEase Keyboard, which is its main inspiration.