I just tried HeliBoard. Ditching Florisboard for now. I still think Florisboard has potential but it is undeveloped, and HeliBoard has everything you’d expect for a Gboard open source substitution. Let’s go! Finally we have our first open source keyboard alternative without drawbacks!
That’s mean.
Florisboard is awesome.
It’s been years without a single new feature, and it’s literally lacking the most important feature of a phone keyboard.
Without auto correct, you can seperate the wheat from the chaff. /s
Thr wheag fron the chadd?
they are both great, but combined they would be a foss diamond of of cosmic porportions and never before reached ingenuity.
It doesn’t have swipe functionality, right?
I tried it but couldn’t find the option.
Go to advanced settings on your HeliBoard app and look for “Load gesture typing library” or similar. Go to HeliBoard GitHub and look for instructions on downloading the library.
Make sure the downloaded library architecture is the specified by the message you’ll see when you click “Load gesture typing library”.
It’s just 30 seconds and you’ll be gesture typing.
The library is closed source.
Well, it’s the one we’ve got for now
It’s a shame it’s not open but just got around to trying this out.
It works great! Thanks for the heads up!
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I am also a great fan of florisboard but the spell check being broken for over a year is kind of a deal breaker. Cause I am dyslectic af.
Requiring a proprietary blob for key functionality (pun intended) is a pretty major drawback, to me.
I know it’s technically optional but it’s a selling point of this software: “openboard but it supports swipe typing”
I’m in the same position because FlorisBoard will over time have all the features that HeliBoard has but HeliBoard has those already so I may switch too
OP, thank you for sharing this. I think this (Heliboard) is my new favorite keyboard that satisfies my personal requirements!!! I mean it.
And to think I almost didn’t click on the post because of the title 🤣…
Same I think Heliboard is the perfect replacement for gboard and Samsung keyboard.
yes replacement and improvement, but unexpected keyboard is true innovation. I really like it but for diacritics and “special letters” its just not as good. to type â for example i need to hold a, then select the letter, whilst in unexpected keyboard I just need to swipe a upwards right.
oh I will say it again … those two apps need to have a baby 😅
Well that’s me switched over to Heliboard. I’ve auditioned a few but that hits the sweet-spot. I don’t seem to be getting next word suggestions yet though.
edit: the suggestions are starting to kick in now.
After trying so many keyboards for years, heliboard with swipe + futo have finally made replacing gboard possible for me. I feel like it been a 90℅ replacement, a far greater degree than some of the good (but not quite there) keyboards currently available. I’ve literally only been using it for a week (for two languages), but I’m really really happy thus far. 😊
Thank you for being the only one mentioning swipe, you’ve convinced me to give it a go.
Edit: It doesn’t even ask for internet permission. Delightful.
Indeed. I hope it works out!
Mind if I ask you how did you do it ?
- I downloaded the release from https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard and then installed.
- I downloaded the swipe library linked in the page from here.
- under HeliBoard settings -> advanced, I clicked “load gesture library” and selected the downloaded swipe library
- and for voice input, I dish l downloaded Futo from the play store.
That’s it. Just setup the apps.
Thanks , it was quick to set up.
OK I’m trying heliboard now, interesting. It puts my Polish, German, English and Swedish keyboard together into one. Let’s see how it’ll work in the long run.
I’m especially impressed that it offers a Korean keyboard too, which I missed in all the other free alternatives. That was the main reason I stuck with the Samsung keyboard.
The multilingual support always predict words in all languages, even if you started a sentence in a specific one. And it will follow the typo rules of the first language in the list. For example, if the first language is French, it will add a space before the interrogation mark (French rule), even if you’re writing in English.
You mean Heliboard? How does multi lingual supporth get enabled? On Swype i was able to swipe in up to two simultaneous languages, and it would always figure the language my swipes were in. Can this be replicated in Heliboard?
I’m wondering the same. Sure would be nice.
EDIT: And I found it a minute after my post lol. Inside Heliboard, go to settings, find languages, don’t use system languages. Add your main language, then tap it and a “hidden” menu will come up. In it is the multilingual option. Tapping it will enable you to add another language to the same Heliboard language.
Lol sure i have that enabled. What i meant is, there were keyboards that typed in BOTH LANGUAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY. As in depending on the swipe gesture it would match to the best likely word of the best likely language. You could type each word on a different language and it would auto magically switch languages. And it was working beautifully. On good ole Swype keyboard, back in the day.
Yeah, that’s what I interpreted. That’s what I enabled with the steps I mentioned. I have the English keyboard enabled in Heliboard. I tapped on it, and added Polish in the “multilingual” section.
I both typed and swiped to właśnie zdanie (this exact sentence) i słowa w nim (and the words in it). Simultaneously.
Added is a screenshot for reference. If you meant something completely different (like letter gesturing?), sorry, I don’t follow.
Nooooo waaay!! I missed this completely! Dude thanks so much! I had no idea this was possible.
Oh BTW I agree that combining it with the feature of sliding the keys would be awesome!
Unexpected Keyboard my beloved.
I can’t type on any other keyboard now, the symbols are too far away.
OK - count me as another convert to Heliboard. This is what I hoped Openboard would achieve. Awesome.
Sweet. I’m pairing Heliboard with Sayboard for dictation.
Could you explain how to “pair” them?
Unexpected keyboard also has a voice dictation button,
could not figure out how to make use of it.That’s a way of saying I’m using both, they’re not integrated.
When you install Sayboard, open it as a normal app, enable it in the settings following their instructions, then download the VOSK model following their guidance.
Heliboard should have a microphone btn that will open the default voice keyboard you enabled in the previous step.
On unexpected keyboard i need to swipe the enter key upwards right and it opens sayboard 😸
thanks for bringing my attention to this!
Coming from Gboard, HeliBoard + Futo voice input is a pretty great. Outside of lacking emoji search and having an always visible voice key, it checks nearly all the boxes. However, it doesn’t check them all. Is there any reason why I would use this combo over Gboard with network connectivity disabled?
If you want software that gives you the four freedoms (to use, share, modify, and share modified copies) then blocking network access is orthogonal to that.
The free software movement is often misunderstood as being about privacy or internet access but it’s really about control over your computing, being able to make your computer do what you want, and sharing your improvements with the community.
Although, the FUTO app itself is already proprietary and the Heliboard uses a proprietary blob for swipe typing.
That’s what I’m wondering too… Gboard with no network permission seems pretty ideal.
