this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2023
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Thumb-Key

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About

Thumb-Key is a privacy-conscious smart keyboard, made specifically for your thumbs.

It features a 3x3 grid layout, as many older phones had, and uses swipes for the less common letters. Initial testing shows that you can reach ~25 words per minute after a day of use.

Instead of relying on profit-driven, privacy-offending word and sentence prediction for accuracy, as do most popular phone keyboards like Gboard and Swiftkey, Thumb-Key uses large keys with predictable positions, to prevent your eyes from hunting and pecking for letters.

As the key positions get ingrained into your muscle memory, eventually you'll be able to appromixate the fast speeds of touch-typing, your eyes never having to leave the text edit area.

This project is a follow-up to the now unmaintained (and closed-source) MessageEase Keyboard, which is its main inspiration.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whoa nice job! You're way ahead of me, and I made the thing lol. I'm maxing out at about 38 wpm right now.

What's the key grid size you use? I'd also like your input from fast typers as to improvements.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm using it with the keygrid size at 75 (long fingers) The app's been pretty solid for me, though I do miss some features from other keyboards:

-Undo/redo swipes (like when you accidentally delete selected text, you can undo it)

-Built-in clipboard history would be very useful to me

-Swipe to move cursor with spacebar like openboard

-Swipe with backspace to select text

-Copy swipe for selected text, already have paste swipe

-The settings button could become a swipe, I occasionally accidentally press it when I type without looking which is a little annoying

-Some more common punctuation in empty swipe spots would be good instead of having to go to numpad or tapping space. It would also make monkeytype quotes faster since they use alot of punctuation.

Other than that I'm really enjoying using it and am getting alot faster. Thank you for the app!