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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

#231

Post by tgtweak »

arusahni wrote: post #226
tgtweak wrote: post #220

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...)

It requires more precision than Swype, but GBoard supports multi-word word deletion if you swipe back originating from the backspace key. You get some haptic feedback, and can scrub to adjust the selected boundary. Unfortunately some of those Swype nicities are patented [1], so other keyboards can't use them. [1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7098896B2/en

I feel like a clean room opensource keyboard could implement those without any patent liabilities. Software patents are notoriously difficult to enforce and I don't think nuance is spending any money enforcing this given they stopped swype in 2018.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#232

Post by superxpro12 »

GL26 wrote: post #137

Fun fact for the first apple keyboard layout on the first iphone, the touchscreen hadn't the resolution to tell appart which letter you meant to type in, so it changed dynamically the "hitboxes" of the letter buttons when you typed a certain letter. (for instance if you typed the letter "i", the hitbox of "t", and "n" were changed to be bigger, because there is a high probability you were hitting those next. Here is…

im fairly sure gboard does the same thing. it will bias towards certain subsequent keys based on the current input. im sure there's a whole bunch of tricks keyboard apps use to make typing "feel" accurate.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#233

Post by 3RTB297 »

sholladay wrote: post #108
crazygringo wrote: post #74

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,…

> it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc. You mean like the two E’s in “feel” or the two L’s in “fell”? I just tried and it handles them well. Are you aware of the circling technique? When you want to double up on a letter, you briefly circle it slightly. I believe some keyboards let you hover momentarily without circling. Try it, swipe F-E-L, it should complete to “fell”, then do the same thing aga…

It does, actually. Do a loop around the doubled letter. It's a common swipe gesture on most keyboards, IIRC, for at least a decade. Not sure why it's hardly ever mentioned. iphones only got it a few years ago.

So for feel, you start at F, go to E, loop once, then L. For fell, start at F, go to E, then loop on L. Very easy to pick up as a physical habit.

I just tested those two on futo, and it easily picked them both out.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#234

Post by 3RTB297 »

Thanks for making this privacy-forward. I had been using Heliboard and then a kludge to get another language they don't support via Simple keyboard. It worked well as a workaround, and then an update last week broke my workaround.

Futo just has all the languages I need, and does a better job with EN swipe than Heliboard. 100% convert. Plus, learning about Clearflow is a game changer.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#235

Post by sublinear »

sholladay wrote: post #108
crazygringo wrote: post #74

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,…

> it doesn't deal well with doubled vs single letters, etc. You mean like the two E’s in “feel” or the two L’s in “fell”? I just tried and it handles them well. Are you aware of the circling technique? When you want to double up on a letter, you briefly circle it slightly. I believe some keyboards let you hover momentarily without circling. Try it, swipe F-E-L, it should complete to “fell”, then do the same thing aga…

I just horizontally backtrack my finger over the double letter. Easier to do and produces the same result.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#236

Post by wolvoleo »

seb1204 wrote: post #112
wolvoleo wrote: post #89

Sounds good but the big problem I have with futo key board is that it can only do one language at a time. With gboard I can swipe type al 3 languages I speak without having to constantly switch. I wish they could make that.

I'm sure they will, version 3. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Well neither is perfect. But I really need that multilingual typing. Constantly switching is so annoying. I won't use the FUTO one until it can do that. It's not some minor nice-to-have.

Gboard has obvious imperfections like data mining. Though on my phone I can just block its network access altogether which mitigates it a lot.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#237

Post by wolvoleo »

soco wrote: post #193
4gotunameagain wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only defined for the default, english charset: https://github.com/futo-org/futo-keyboard-layouts/blob/main/...

And anyway, there's no keyboard on earth who can handle multi-language typing in a sane way. They either mash all languages together, or force random layouts on you, or... I stuck with GBoard because I just hate it less than others, so when I found this topic I thought yay let's try - until I read it's only for English. So there.

I really like how gboard handles it. It figures out what language I'm typing from the first couple of words and prioritises those. This way I can even mix languages within the same sentence and it will still recommend the right ones. It's really really good.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#238

Post by serpix »

dhruvbird wrote: post #125

Very cool. I'm a big fan of swipe. So much so that a bunch of us a Grammarly re-implemented it using a similar technique about 2 years ago on the Grammarly iOS keyboard, so if you want to experience something similar on iOS, you can head to the app store https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grammarly-ai-keyboard-notes/id... and use the qwerty english keyboard layout to get this neural net version of swipe. See https://www.g…

Tried Grammarly, could you possibly include a few more onboarding animations and reminders to upgrade to the paid version? I almost finished typing a word.

Re: FUTO Swipe – A new swipe typing model

#240

Post by Squarex »

tmach32 wrote: post #190
Squarex wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a long time apple keyboard did not support my language (czech), I would use gboard. And yes, it is still slightly better than the Apple one, but the switching is buggy and the problem is on the apple side.

They didn’t support Czech ?! Until what year?

I am not quite sure, like 2-4 years ago.
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