Unexpected Keyboard

[kqr]

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]

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.

[a_e_k]

Interesting. I've been using the Hacker's Keyboard with Termux, but it doesn't seem to have received any updates in a long time. (I'm fine with programs being considered complete, but I also realize that Android is unfortunately a moving target.)

Has anyone used both and could compare them?

[z2h-a6n]

I've used both, though I'm not sure I can compare them directly, since it has been a year or more since I switched from Hacker's Keyboard.

Unexpected Keyboard works well for me when using Termux, possibly even better than Hacker's Keyboard, since I find it easier to swipe on a key to get to uncommonly-used symbols rather than switching to a different keyboard layer. Every now and then I accidentally swipe a key when I meant to press it, and end up entering a accented character when I didn't mean to, but this is fairly rare. I don't use Termux very often, but for occasional vim or terminal usage it's totally sufficient.

One cool feature of Unexpected Keyboard (which may be available elsewhere, I haven't looked at many others) is that you can swipe left and right on the space bar to quickly and accurately scroll left and right in a text field. I find this about as fast as tapping at a position in a text field, but much more accurate.

[tcrenshaw]

I used Hacker's keyboard for years before moving over to unexpected keyboard for any terminal work done via phone. Unexpected keyboard gives easier access to symbols and has slightly larger keys (less keys on the main layer) than Hacker's keyboard.

I still use Gboard for my main keyboard, but looking for replacement suggestions that have a good swipe to text

[creshal]

I started with Hacker's Keyboard and moved to Unexpected because Hacker's stopped working on newer Android devices. It's not a 1:1 replacement, but it works really well once you get used to it, and it also works as a decent general purpose keyboard.

[tester457]

Unexpected Keyboard allows you to create your own keyboard layouts so I prefer it.

[stavros]

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]

[FUTO Keyboard](https://keyboard.futo.org/) uses a local LLM for suggestions and corrections.

[troupo]

> 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. "

[LeoPanthera]

Apparently the iPhone predictions literally do use GPT-2, or at least a model based on it:

https://jackcook.com/2023/09/08/predictive-text.html

[kristopolous]

The only thing I really want is a keyboard that doesn't think I'm trying to type "Ava" all the time I'm typing "and". Dictionary removal would be just great. I don't ever intend to type "Ava". It has been my intention exactly Zero times.

[NooneAtAll3]

it's always so strange to see people on the opposite side of precision spectrum

I disable auto-correct and word suggestions, always get annoyed by "drag around and find out what your mistap gave you!" features - and here I read someone _dreaming_ about "general vicinity" understand-er

fascinating

[pandemic_region]

> SwiftKey is amazing because I can tap in the general vicinity of keys and it always writes the right thing

Not my experience at all. Been using it for 10 years, whenever I manage to write a 10 word sentence without needing to correct anything I feel like i just won the lottery.

[noAnswer]

The keyboard with the best prediction and self learning was my (first smartphone) Sony Xperia Z5 from 2015. I only realized it was a Sony specific app later in life. (I didn't understand auto correction memes until I got a work phone with a google keyboard.) Sadly they don't offer it as a stand alone app. I would pay for it.

I have settled for FUTO Keyboard for now. Bevor that I used SwiftKey. (The Sony is still the only one where I did see contextual self-learning/prediction.)

[eviks]

Great idea to allow multiple symbols per key, though it's not worth losing swipe over, so these should be behind a longer key press (hold for .5 sec then swipe to the corner ) or a double tap Is they any keyboard that combines those and is also customizable?

The numbers should also be in a numpad layout, unfortunately common mistake even in custom keyboards

Also some keys in good central positions like sdf are surprising empty, could reduce the overload of other keys by shifting some symbols there

Wonder how convenient corner gestures are vs pure horizontal/vertical

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

150ms, not 500. Try it. Gboard already has this built in. Feels very snappy if you do it this way. And you don't give up swipe nor tapping.

[mouse_]

Swipe isn't a good fit for terminal input, which is the usecase for this keyboard.

[tester457]

You can create your own keyboard layouts in this app.

[vitiral]

Some of us don't use swipe, this is great for me

[BurnGpuBurn]

There is a numpad, quite nice. Ctrl key to bottom right.

[norswap]

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.

[Ginguin]

MessagEase has been my go-to for years. I swapped this year to thumb-key when MessagEase went to a subscription.

I love the ability to quickly copy, paste, select-all, type special characters, etc., all without having to do anything complicated. It took me a little bit of time to get used to the layout, but now I type exactly what I want, as I want it, without any auto-correct or automation needed. I make few errors and love the whole way of doing it. QWERTY makes very little sense on such a small screen, but it's what people know.

[Nullabillity]

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]

Or Thumb-key, an open-source take on that.

[kqr]

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...

[ChadNauseam]

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

[zimpenfish]

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

[out_of_protocol]

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!

[justsomehnguy]

> Did not figure out how to swith to next language

1. Select the needed ones in the settings

1. Swipe up on the space bar

[lovegrenoble]

where's the link to Calculator++ ?

[glacierSong]

I use keyboard with similar concept as this for more than 10 years. It uses a 3 by 3 key with additional column for control so like an old phone but swipe based. I like it because I can use 1 hand to write on phone. The application called MessageEase[0] before they go subscription based and now I use Thumb-Key[1].

[0] https://www.exideas.com/ME/ [1] https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key

[yellowapple]

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]

Do you not need astonishing precision to not make any mistakes?

[gavinhoward]

This was...unexpected...

Unexpectedly good. I am definitely going to relearn typing on my phone just to use this.

[Elfener]

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]

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.

[arcanemachiner]

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]

> '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.

Apologies to any I've offended with this. Style guides were updated in the last 4-5 years to say that one single space after a period is correct. I think Word even changed how it handles it as well.

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/punctuatio...

[tasuki]

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!

[aftbit]

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.

[stavros]

Someone downthread proposed FUTO keyboard, I'm trying it right now and it's fantastic. Give it a shot !

[gitaarik]

Did you try AnySoft Keyboard?

[vonunov]

Multiling O Keyboard

[zuluonezero]

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

[romulobribeiro]

I literally downloaded last week this keyboard to do the Advent of Code on the go

[1209412comb]

This is similar to how Japanese use a 3x4 flick but the difference is that 1 word is typically 3-6 syllables where Latin is double the amount, also triple the amount of words per sentence.

[amake]

This is very similar to Japanese "flick" input:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhD6r8NKlmY

[3r7j6qzi9jvnve]

Japanese flick input is closer to thumb-key ( https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key I just discovered in another comment), and even that's a bit different as you get to input a consonant+vowel pair at a time (e.g. ka-ki-ku-ke-ko on a key)

I switch between Japanese input and hacker keyboard all the time for termux and it's much faster to type Japanese; this thread made me want to try both thumb-key and unexpected keyboard but I think I'll try thumb-key first.

[rustcleaner]

It's great, just NEEDS one thing:

Configuration export/import.

[ivolimmen]

I just installed it. And thus far: it makes sense. I need to get used to this one. Weird thing is: I don't mis the autocorrect other keyboards usually have.

[cynicalsecurity]

Nothing beats the privacy-oriented FUTO keyboard for me.

[desireco42]

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

[ivanche]

It has both latin and cyrillic! Go to settings and tap Add an alternate layout.

[shwouchk]

Awesome stuff! I used to use Hackers Keyboard (up until … now!) but it’s not OSS, hasnt been updated, and i use the swipe even there.

Thanks for sharing!

[edit]

Even more for making!

[adakbar]

Thank you for posting, this is game changer, I have quite an old phone and this keyboard help me use it less unbearable

[guyzero]

Very innovative but it seems to require a level of precision that I don't think I've achieved on a phone keyboard.

[gitaarik]

Very nice keyboard. It would be so awesome if auto-complete and auto-correct would be added as optional features.

[watersb]

iOS app Textastic features a similar swipe-to-key-corner feature.

https://www.textasticapp.com/

It's wonderful. There's also a macOS version.

[tetris11]

I've been unsatisfied with Heliboard, so I might give this a try

[mosquitobiten]

ThumbKey inspired Querty, that's cool I guess.

[neves]

Any keyboard with an undo button?

[eimrine]

Any ideas how to make it privacy-respecting? It should remember everything to do that.

[caxco93]

now I can use this and try to be like this guy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42374823

[hiked]

I love the small keyboard

[justsomehnguy]

Using it since https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32658104

What doesn't work:

1. Ctrl/Alt isn't passed to RDP session in the official MS app.

1. Sometimes number input moves the decimal to a swipe and this is kinda... dumb.

It's not as fast as Hacker's Keyboard but overall it works good and I even did wrote some small things on it.

I replaced all HK with UK on all my phones and one tablet.

Can recommend.

[maguay]

Sad that a keyboard even needs to say that it's "privacy-conscious." What a world we've built, where one might reasonably worry that their keyboard _isn't_ private.

[rollcat]

The standalone microcontroller in your physical keyboard can run arbitrary code, and it's been able to since we've invented keyboards attached to the computer via a port. What's there to stop the manufacturer (or a sophisticated attacker) from:

- recording your keystrokes in non-volatile memory, to be extracted later?

- exfiltrating them in real-time via Bluetooth (yay for wireless peripherals), WiFi, LoRa?

- asking the OS to install a driver, which (even if approved/signed) could have exploitable security holes?

The main hurdles are scale and sophistication, which, with an all-software "keyboard", were no longer an issue.

[dan-robertson]

See eg https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/about/cryptologic-h...

[enoeht]

I never developed much trust in current smartphones where in some countries the SIM can be a backdoor.