Open Source @lemmy.ml TheFrirish @jlai.lu 1 mo. ago

Heliboard goes into 1.0

github.com Releases · Helium314/HeliBoard

Customizable and privacy-conscious open-source keyboard - Helium314/HeliBoard

The successor of Openboard, Heliboard finally comes out in 1.0 my favorite open source keyboard out there.

93 comments

HeliBoard with Swipe + FUTO have made replacing gboard possible for me. I feel like it's been a 90% replacement, a far greater degree than some of the decent keyboards currently available. I regularly use but swipe and speech to text in two languages. I'm really really happy and grateful for these tools. 💜
- Just in case I'm asked, here's the basics steps to get it going:
  
  I downloaded the release from https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard and then installed. (Or set it up via Obtainium until its ready for F-Droid release)
  
  I downloaded the Swipe library linked on the HeliBoard Github page from here.
  
  Under HeliBoard settings -> advanced, I clicked "load gesture library" and selected the downloaded swipe library
  
  And for voice input, l downloaded Futo from the play store. FYI, it's free and offline, but not FOSS.
  
  That's it.
  
  Just setup the two apps with your specifics like the theme and etc. This is what mine looks like now:
  
  How do you get your microphone option in the top right corner like that. Mine only shows up under the toolbar menu, after hitting the arrow key (top left corner)
  
  This was very helpful, thank you.
  
  Edit: is the FUTO app restricted in any way until I purchase premium?
  
  until its ready for F-Droid release
  
  Just FYI, it is on IzzyOnDroid!
- this is great. I've been looking for a gboard replacement for so long
  minor thing: how do i import my personal dictionary from gboard? the github page says something about .dict files but gboard exported a zip with a .txt file
  
  Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with importing and exporting personal dictionaries. I looked into it a bit, but wasn't successful in finding anything relevant.
- Hi! Started using heliboard a few weeks ago, but what are those other two?
  
  HeliBoard board supports Swipe gestures and FUTO is a free, offline speech to text app that works incredibly well for me and the two languages I use.
  
  Links and instructions here: https://lemmy.ca/comment/8335355
- Really wish you could speak punctuation with FUTO.
  
  Oh my goodness yes! I say punctuations constantly out of habit and then have to edit them out. But I'm also really impressed with FUTOs ability to determine punctuation based on pauses.
- Am I understanding correctly, you can swipe in two languages without hitting a "switch language" button like on Gboard? If so I may have to make the switch
  
  Unfortunately no. That's remains part of the 10% that this solution doesn't replicate 1:1. But... you can use a spacebar gesture (e.g. vertical swipe) to quickly change languages. Works like a charm.
This is the definitive replacement for gboard, people. It works fantastically well already with everything that Gboard has and it will only get better from here on.
- Does it have multiple layouts support (Latin, Cyrillic), swipe typing and clipboard history?
  
  Idk about layouts but swipe is available if you look into it, you just need to download a file to load the it into the keyboard and yes on clipboard history
Great piece of software!
- I second this
It's really great to see a continuation of Openboard.
Still waiting for Japanese support. At the moment the only decent Japanese keyboard on Android are either GBoard or Microsoft one unfortunately.
- Have you tried fcitx with the Anthy plugin? I use that for Japanese.
  
  https://github.com/fcitx5-android/fcitx5-android
  
  Thank you for bringing up the app to me!
- I started learning Japanese as I started using Heliboard, for now I just swap back when I need it. GBoard doesn't play nice with the language button switching between apps so I just use the OS keyboard button and have the language button disabled everywhere, which also frees up some space!
TLDR: Why do I stop using OpenBoard and use this instead :)?
- Openboard hasn't updated in a year and a half
  
  But how often do I need to update my keyboard lol?
- Some new features, bug fixes, and ongoing support.
  
  ~~It is a new application so you do have to set it up fresh - don't switch until you have a bit of spare time.~~ Missed the back and restore button in settings.
  
  Personally I'm on one of the fork's beta versions. I'm waiting for the f-droid release so I get updates.
  
  It is a new application so you do have to set it up fresh
  
  You can import your OpenBoard settings
  
  Use Obtainium? I get updates from GitHub (and Fdroid) that way.
- It has swipe typing plus a lot of other new features/theme customisation that openboard didn't have.
- Swiping
This update somehow has broken haptic feedback on my keyboard 🤔
- https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard/issues/597
  
  Thanks, not sure how I missed this!
Why do they always tell you it's the successor of whatever, but never what it is for?
- Read the whole sentence?
  
  Why do I have to read a hole?
  
  It was late...
Looks nice but I wish the clipboard history could be based on number of items and not just time.
- I'm sure that could be implemented.
Great progress

But now the key vibration is dead ... Missing the tiny tactile feedback was enough for me to return to the older version

And gestures library loading is gone? I can't find it, I know its not foss but its so useful that I don't mind it being property. Much better than having gboard log every word I type
- yeah for me too. hopefully it will be fixed soon.
  
  Permanently Deleted
- But now the key vibration is dead
  
  Ahh So i am not the only one. hope it gets fixed soon.
Been using this for about 3 months or so. The one piece missing is good swipe word recognition - its really poor compared to Gboard even after this amount of time. I spend more time correcting words than I saved nor typing them. Used swipe with Gboard for many years previously so I know hope swipe works.

Any suggestions on how to improve it?
- I have found this to be the case as well.
  
  What it has forced me to do now is to actually try to be close to the letters. When I'm swiping with gboard, I was very sloppy and it would recognize what I wrote. At this point, I'm fine being more accurate for the tradeoff.
  
  Hmmm. Yeah I'm pretty sloppy about my letters too. Maybe I need to be a bit more precise to get the best out of it.
Been looking for a decent keyboard app, gonna try this out for sure 🙂
Any idea when it's going to be available in fdroid?
- It's on IzzyOnDroid repo
  
  Thanks!
Is this better in any way tohan florisboard? I've been using it (florisboard) for a year now and had no problems and have loved its features (especially the text navigation arrows and clipboard history).
Does not use internet permission, and thus is 100% offline.

Does the AOSP keyboard access internet?
Using it since version 14.1, as far as I remember but since then, I was finally able to replace gboard. Heli is really awesome. I always believed that florisboard will be my gboard replacement but for non-english swipe users nothing really changed or improved for years and then heli came out of the blue. Of course, it's still a compromise compared to gboard and it probably always will be but to me it reached a point where this is minimal.

Yesterday I found out about the experimental dictionaries and imported them. Let's see if there will be visible improvement. Does anyone have more experience with those dictionaries?
- I didn't know about experimental dictionaries. Would this help with swipe recognition as it's really poor compared to gboard?
  
  I found out about it only yesterday so I can't really answer you this but it really seems like english works really well. I can't day of it worked like tie with the old dictionary. Maybe someone else can answer this as I would like to know this as well.
What happened to OpenBoard?
- Development ceased.
Nice! Guys, any ideas of when other languages keyboard will stop underline red the words that are correct? I don't like to use multilingual keyboard, I prefer to have multiple keyboards with their own dictionaries. Everything else seems to be working quite well for me. Am I missing something?
Loving it, I've been looking for a more customisable keyboard.
If you can't tell me what it is or how it's useful to me when I scan through the primary landing page, not worth my time.
- HeliBoard is a privacy-conscious and customizable open-source keyboard, based on AOSP / OpenBoard. Does not use internet permission, and thus is 100% offline.
  
  First Paragraph of the readme.md in that repository.
  
  I mean in a way he has a point next time I'll add the description in the news and the small description in the text.
- There's a section you're supposed to read called readme, it's really your fault unless you've never installed software from github before.

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