this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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The only app I can't live without. Except for gboard, all of my applications are Foss. There is no competition for gboard's swipe typing, not to mention its many capabilities like as searching for gifs, stickers, being able to paste copied images, translating, and so on. I'd like to know how I can use gboard while maintaining my privacy. According to what I've heard, it sends all typing data to Google's server. If you ask me, that's a massive no-no. Do you have any suggestions?

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[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 75 points 2 years ago (13 children)

Give OpenBoard with gesture typing a shot. No gifs and stuff, but gesture typing works together with suggestions, unlike either base OB or Floris. Someone casually mentioned it a few weeks ago and damn how much my life changed.

[–] mremugles@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago
[–] UdeRecife@lemmy.sdfeu.org 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm so thrilled right now! I'm already typing this reply on OpenBoard and I'm loving it.

Gboard was also a big hurdle to my need to degoogle my phone. But not anymore!

Thank you so much. You've brighten my day. I'm both happy for knowing this and for finding about it on the fediverse.

[–] ijeff@lemdro.id 7 points 2 years ago

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this whole vibe!

[–] nulldev@lemmy.vepta.org 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

BTW that still uses Google's proprietary gesture typing library internally: https://github.com/wordmage/openboard/commit/46fdf2b550035ca69299ce312fa158e7ade36967

There's still no good FOSS alternative to Google's library though so it is what it is.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Aha, that's why it's not on F-Droid. That makes sense.

Still, it doesn't connect to the internet so unless there's something very sneaky Google does in the background, it should be good?

Floris Board afaik has its own implementation of gesture typing, but that's been stuck in beta without word suggestions, so it's not really usable.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)
[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's the version without gesture typing. The fork uses the same name so they can be hard to distinguish.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 7 points 2 years ago

Doh, my edit was slower than comment federation πŸ˜€

[–] whoopThereItIs@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Wow this works pretty well!

[–] hombre_fundido@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

How did I not know about this?

Amazing. Thank you.

[–] Sl00k@programming.dev 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I can live with no gifs, but I can't live without emoji support :/

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Sl00k@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Weird I'm not seeing any options for emojis anywhere on the keyboard using S23 Ultra

[–] hombre_fundido@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

It's under 'preferences.'

[–] ijeff@lemdro.id 2 points 2 years ago

If you long press the comma key on the left of the spacebar, you'll see an emoji icon on the far right.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Maybe you have the key disabled, look in settings under preferences. There's a bunch of stuff you might want to tweak.

[–] UdeRecife@lemmy.sdfeu.org 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Long press the enter/return button (round, with an left point arrow). It'll show you the emoji and clipboard buttons. πŸ’‘

Alternatively, you can turn on the dedicated emoji button on OpenBoard's preferences.

You can also long press the comma button. There you'll find the preferences and emoji buttons.

[–] SGforce@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago

Wow, this is an awesome keyboard! I love the pointer moving with the spacebar.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's impressive thank you. Gesture typing with it now.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How do you gesture type with it? Slide doesn't work for me and there's no option to enable it.

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

You have to go to the settings and turn gestures on. Also this is not the fdroid version. This is the version from the link above.

[–] jsnfwlr@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Thanks for sharing. I've finally replaced Gboard. Now I have to adjust to the new key sizes, but at least I know my data is private

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

You can resize it in settings, at least the height. I have mine set to 80%. Before OB I was using GB and I recall setting it so both looked the same.

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm glad the word is spreading, i also found out a few weeks ago through Lemmy. The only bug that drives me up the wall is when trying to delete backwards to fix a word. It eventually eats the space to the PREVIOUS word, joining them together and making an even bigger mess. It also looks like it never got an update after September :(

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I guess you're using Jerboa? Apparently that's a bug between ~~WebView~~ Webkit and the AOSP keyboard (which OB is based on), or something... I don't quite get what's going on...

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

It actually happens on any window or app I've used, maybe they're all webview instances... Dunnow.

[–] diegantobass@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

VoilΓ  ! My first great piece of advice found on Lemmy! So thankful for this, and for witnessing the sudden growth of a great community here on Lemmy <3

[–] KroninJ@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Thanks! The only thing I don't like is that I can't have arrow keys. It's immediately better than SwiftKey for sure, so I'll adjust.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You can use swiping on the space bar to move left and right at least.

AnySoftKeyboard has arrow keys and more gestures, but it's not as refined overall imo.

Floris Board has gestures to move around IIRC, but not at the same time as gesture typing, and is lacking word suggestions.

[–] KroninJ@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Awesome! Using space to go left and right is good enough for me!

Thanks a ton for that. I got to really liking OpenBoard since I started using it.

[–] bug@lemmy.one 3 points 2 years ago

I've been looking for something like this for so long, thank you!