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FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

swipe.futo.tech

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Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thumb typing muscle memory does not translate to finger typing at all. Most Dvorak or Colemak users are comfortable using QWERTY on their phones. Clearflow really only works well with swipe.

No, not muscle memory, but at least the idea of knowing where keys are. I'd bet that non-qwerty typers mostly started with qwerty and possibly still need to use it on some occasions, so they remember.

I can't speak for everyone but I did an experiment to see if this was the case (I actually just wanted to switch to Colemak everywhere. But iOS doesn't support it natively and third party keyboard landscape is pretty bleak on iOS). I switched to Dvorak on my phone and got really comfortable with it. I was already comfortable with Colemak on my computer. Then I tried

1. Switching to Dvorak on my computer AND 2. Switching to Colemak on my phone

I already had a feeling that my Dvorak experience on phone wasn't gonna help typing in a physical keyboard and indeed that was the case. But also, the physical keyboard experience with Colemak didn't really help with thumb typing/swiping on the phone. On a physical keyboard, I can only type QWERTY at around 30WPM and Colemak at around 130WPM. However, on the phone QWERTY is my strongest layout (even when I can only type at around 50WPM with it).

Then there's the design philosophy. Colemak aggressively keeps the most used letters on the homerow. Paste a random Wikipedia article into this page and you'll see (https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ alternatively, here's the heatmap for the introduction to today's featured article about Augustus: https://postimg.cc/9RT8P4N6). On a phone this means that a lot of the times you'll be swiping back and forth horizontally. Resulting in identical swipe paths for a lot of common words.

And if Clearflow was ported to a physical keyboard, most of your fingers won't be doing any work and the active fingers will be doing weird tap dance. The position of spacebar (undoubtedly the most used key on the keyboard) to the sides where you'd be using your pinky would make it an RSI machine.

My point is that if you're comfortable with QWERTY on the phone, that's not because you're comfortable with QWERTY on the desktop. That's because you got used to QWERTY on the phone.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#252

What I really want is a swipe model that can tune to multiple languages simultaneously when a keyboard layout can support it (English + German, German + French, etc). I rarely need more than 2 languages simultaneously, but the "switching between 2 languages" point is painful.

Yes, this is a showstopper for me. Preciso escrever in several languages.

schon claro

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#253

I love swiping for speed, because it's usually faster than tapping and easy to do one-handed, but then there are always a bunch of words that are too similar that it can never get right, it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc. So for the longest time, I've wanted a new keyboard layout specifically designed for swiping. In the same way that Dvorak was optimized for ergonomically typing English words,…

Back during my Palm Pilot days I’ve discovered the FITALY layout - optimised for pen input and one-finger typing. But it should work similarly efficient for swiping as the goal was to minimise travel between letters (in the English language).

http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/fitaly.htm

However, there’s no Fitaly keyboard available for modern phone OSes.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#254
post #78

I love swiping for speed, because it's usually faster than tapping and easy to do one-handed, but then there are always a bunch of words that are too similar that it can never get right, it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc. So for the longest time, I've wanted a new keyboard layout specifically designed for swiping. In the same way that Dvorak was optimized for ergonomically typing English words,…

FUTO Swipe supports ClearFlow, which is exactly what you are talking about, a keyboard layout optimized for swiping: https://clearflowkeyboard.github.io/ https://github.com/futo-org/futo-keyboard-layouts/issues/163

Thank you! That's amazing. I had no idea!

It's one of those things I've been wanting for a decade now, sounds like it's been around for about a year and a half.

Man, this is the kind of stuff I come to HN for.

EDIT: Ugh! I have an iPhone, and FUTO is Android-only, and ClearFlow is only available in the Android Gboard, not the iOS Gboard. :(

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#255
post #43

I don't really get swiping. It's always going to be quicker and more efficient to type because you can use both hands, right? And you don't have to swipe your finger across the screen? Still going strong with Fleksy even though you can't even download it anymore.

Swiping with one finger is faster than typing with two in my experience. But you can have best of both worlds, my keyboard let's me swipe with two fingers at the same time (heliboard on f-droid)

The thing is, with Fleksy, as long as you get within a few characters of the letter, it counts, and you also switch auto-correct choices by swiping up or swiping down, so you can fix them easily. It's a joy to type with 2 hands, honestly.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#256
post #57
post #43

I don't really get swiping. It's always going to be quicker and more efficient to type because you can use both hands, right? And you don't have to swipe your finger across the screen? Still going strong with Fleksy even though you can't even download it anymore.

Maybe for you personally, but in a general sense I don't see how you can hold a phone and "use both hands" to type individual keys. One notable advantage of swiping is that you can be quite loose with each single swipe gesture whereas you have to hit the right key many times for each word. That swipe is also usually much quicker than finding multiple keys for most people. You preferences may reflect youth, eyesight,…

I think it more likely reflects using bigger phones, where swiping across a while keyboard is quite slow, but also, I hate typing with two hands with any other app than Fleksy. You just have to hit within the general area of the key and it counts. I haven't had that kind of success with any other keyboard I've tried.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gboard has voice dictation and it has real-time update

Yep, and it's pretty bad. The only benefit is real-time, which is why I highlighted that FUTO lacks that. If it made as many errors as GBoard, it wouldn't be worth using.

No it's pretty good. Pretty much always accurate. Was that years ago? Or are you talking about languages with less resources?

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#258

After experiencing Nintype on iOS many years ago, I can't use any other swipe keyboard anymore. I'm stuck using the stock keyboard for typing, and sometimes (rarely) swiping a word or two when I din't have two hands available. Swiping (with one finger) when holding my phone with both hands just feels unnatural and sluggish. I wish Apple had just bought/sherlocked Nintype and integrated it into the stock keyboard.

Completely agree! The author made a buggy android port of nintype (called keyboard 69) that I used for years. The UX was incredible, and every swipe system I've tried since feels downright clumsy by comparison. Two finger swipe is peak ergonomics, but unfortunately I think it's an innovation that's simply too niche.

Never heard of that one before, so I looked it up & watched a demo vid.

Aieeee!

I don't think I could ever learn to use that. I am from the 1990s fast-T9 entry era, and my thumb dexterity is poor. (And I'm left-handed with a badly-damaged right hand.)

I think this is a text entry method solely or primarily for the 2-thumb console-gamepad generation. (I find gamepads really hard to use, too. Give me a joystick, or mouse+WASD.)

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#259

swype was so good before it got destroyed by Nuance. Gboard's own swipe to type is decent but missing a lot of those features that made swype so much better (swipe once backwards to erase the previous word, loop a letter to double it, swipe up to the suggested word to select it, correct a previous word with the next few words context...)

> swype was so good before it got destroyed by Nuance.

100% this. THE best text-entry method for touchscreens. Nuance enshittified it and then Microsoft killed it.

https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2022/06/06/microsofts-sw...

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#260

This keyboard seems to ship with a dictionary that includes a lot of curse words. No more ducking around.

I can't see what's wrong with that (you choose whether to accept suggestions or not), but you can always blacklist predictions by long-pressing on them.

I read it as a positive comment, as in that it types what you wrote
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