Over the years I’ve tested out pretty much all the Android keyboards, but swipe typing always kept me on GBoard, even though GBoard did not support voice typing for anything except Google, so I had to switch keyboards for that.
Recently I learned that HeliBoard has support for gesture typing with the Google library. But I couldn’t find any instructions on where to get the necessary files or how to do it. Well, someone posted a link to the file elsewhere so I’ll share it here. And it works! Extremely well. I can also pin a button for voice typing and then select Transcribro for that (which uses OpenAI Whisper locally and works super well.
Another gripe I had with GBoard was the cursor moves way too fast when swiping on the space bar. Not so with Heliboard. You can also swipe backwards from the backspace key and it will highlight text and then delete it when you let go.
I see that FUTO has a keyboard too. Is it necessary to install both FUTO keyboard and voice input? Do people like the FUTO keyboard as a google alternative?
Futo is very problematic.
Uuuuuuugjgjjjjjgjvjjjjhhh fuuuuck. I mean, thanks for posting this. But god damn it, dude. I was so happy with FUTO keyboard, and it felt so nice using something that I thought was pretty pure and good. I’ll admit I didn’t do my due diligence, I just kinda saw Open Source and stars and went with it. Ugh. So alright, what should disgust me about Heliboard?
I’m so sick of 90% of even seemingly decent things turning out to be connected to always this same exact evil shit
Futo is really good! The voice input is amazing! And you can actually download just the voice input and use it inside Heliboard if you want
Thanks. Uninstalled FUTO keyboard. Just using FUTO voice with HeliBoard
I used FUTO keyboard as well. But it doesn’t allow to import swipe gesture libraries. They have their own swipe dataset but it’s not very good. Plus it’s not open source.
I love FUTO keyboard. I think you can set up other voice inputs, but I’m not sure. I do know that you can use the voice input with other keyboards. It’s honestly the best voice input I’ve ever used. It works better than Google or Microsoft. It’s faster than other implementations of the same library.
A lot of people have said that the gesture typing is bad, but I’ve never had trouble with it personally.
Heliboard is also a great choice - I used it for a while before switching to FUTO. If you are an open source enthusiast, it is the best option by far IMO. FUTO has the source available for audit and community contributions, and is privacy respecting, but it is debated whether the license is truly FOSS.
Is that actually your name? As in, גדליה? Juuuuust curious.
My middle name, yeah.
Cool.
Yes, you can use Futo Voice Input separately.
I’m using Cleverkeys. I installed the Futo Voice Input, but haven’t got it working with Cleverkeys. I have to switch keyboards when I want to use voice input.
I don’t use gesture typing.