Open Source

31737 readers

137 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

171

FlorisBoard | FOSS keyboard that respects your privacy (florisboard.org)

submitted 1 year ago by vintprox to c/[email protected]

58 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I came across everyday topic on Techlore Discussions about free and open source keyboards for Android and discovered this little gem. It is FlorisBoard, a virtual keyboard for Android which respects privacy of the user. I can sigh with relief and finish my search for that singular keyboard for typing stuff on the go.

It has everything I need and more.

Multilanguage support: detailed layout options, popular presets
Swift and glide typing experience
Customizable gestures: switch language by fast swiping the keyboard itself left and right, change case by swiping up, the infamous cursor swipe on space bar
Emojis
Clipboard
Smartbar: quick actions and clipboard cursor tools
One-handed mode
Other look-and-feel settings

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] sayitghoul 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The other problem with FOSS keyboards is that development always dies off with no more updates.

This makes it a non starter for me

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

There are a lot of "open source enthusiasts", but not enough "open source contributors"

[–] vintprox 7 points 1 year ago

Exactly because the thing is FOSS, that becomes possible for more people with enough qualifications to resume it. In proprietary case, only very limited circle gets to touch the source code. We're probably witnessing a curse with virtual keyboards in FOSS, like some niche kinds of software...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

FlorisBoard kinda died off for a year as patrickgold tried to implement statistical NLP suggestions. Thankfully, quite recently he opened up developments for contributors and people looking to help with the project on a long-term basis.