I love this site

alternativeto.net/browse/new-a

New App Releases:

A long list of great apps & services released recently

You can search for alternatives to software/apps you already use and sometimes you find much better alternatives - especially good for looking for Open-Source Software/apps before actually installing a certain app, using certain software, do a quick search and see if there is an open source alternative 😉

Found what I was looking for

HeliBoard is a fork of OpenBoard, continuing the project from where it stopped.

github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard

Was using OpenBoard for a while now

counter.social/@ecksmc/1110236

But it has been abandoned kinda

Heliboard take's over

f-droid.org/packages/helium314

@ecksmc
I'll have to check us out. I had tried a bunch of these, and non-performed nearly as well as Google's keyboard. Particularly with glide typing which I heavily rely on. Looks like that is supported here if you extract Google's library for it.

@voltronic I don't use glide typing so no biggie for me ik a lot do use it and these open source keyboards don't play nice with that feature I have heard or they don't have the feature

This new one I'm trying now has an option to download glide typing library in advanced settings - OpenBoard didn't have any glide typing option

This the keyboard look

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@ecksmc
Yes I've installed and been playing with it. One setting tweak that has helped me is to reduce the key height to 90%, which feels a bit closer to GBoard.

Other than that, the glide typing works well, but it's far less forgiving than Google's. You have to be much more precise with your swipes.

@voltronic yeah the height adjustment is essential with some keyboards

That was a common theme I heard when others had complained about glide typing on open source keyboards. Would that get better given time though as in more you use it more it might remember words you actually use more than others like learn from you? Isn't that how GBoard does it ?

@ecksmc
Gboard doesn't improve the glide detection in my experience. It's just always looking at the context of what you're writing and feeding that into a mild sort of auto correct when you "miss" on your glides.

I might try increasing the correction strength in this one to see it it gets closer.

@ecksmc
Sadly, I uninstalled. The swiping is just not ready for primetime, even though it's using Google's library. I'm back using Gboard.

@voltronic yeah it is an experimental feature

I'm sticking with it, it deffo has more features and options than OpenBoard, I've never gotten into the glide typing myself so that ain't an issue for me

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