this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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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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At the suggestion of @ploum , I have started to use by @dessalines and I love it. It's a bit of a struggle after having used qwerty and azerty screen keyboards for so long, but I'm already (assets.chaos.social)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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At the suggestion of @ploum , I have started to use @thumbkey by @dessalines and I love it. It's a bit of a struggle after having used qwerty and azerty screen keyboards for so long, but I'm already going quite fast with it, while doing less typos. This is very interesting. I have the french layout but it's also quite easy to use for english text. Here is the toot that inspired me https://mamot.fr/@ploum/113945303642550960

edit: it's on fdroid of course

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@f4grx

Quel est le meilleur layout pour le français ?

@ploum @thumbkey @dessalines

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

@louisvgn @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines aucune idée ! Comme je débute, pour moi ils sont tous équivalents. j'ai pris français 1.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

@f4grx @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines Ok merci ! J’ai commencé avec la v3 en pensant que c’était la dernière version, donc la meilleure, mais j’ai eu beaucoup de mal

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Glad you're liking it. It's pretty mature now thanks to a lot of user contributions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@f4grx @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines thanks for this. Installing on my phone now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@ryokimball @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines beware the learning curve 😆

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@f4grx @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines I have let that stop me before, usually with gadgets that I spend too much money on to just sit on a shelf (my TapWithUs strap is sitting across my office on the floor right this moment...). But I'm still willing to give it a go

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

@ryokimball @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines it is surprisingly easy to use !

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Interesting! I'm not sure which layout I should pick for french, tough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@TomViolence I selected french 1 as I said to myself that any single one would be as good as the others since it's a complete relearning. I also decided to use the same layout for all languages, fr or en.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

En fait j'hésite avec le layout "split" qui a l'air intéressant. Ou plutôt un genre de split, parce que celui proposé donne le V en accès direct, ce qui ne semble pas optimal du tout.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

@TomViolence j'aurais dû explorer les layouts avant. Maintenant je m'habitue bien au fr 1 et j'ai pas trop envie de changer :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I now refuse to go back! It took time but now I openly express pain using qwerty on a touchscreen :) Probably the first thing I'd install on my phone (after f-droid to find it naturally) :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Jesus Christ, it's $20??

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

That's just a way for ppl to donate to its FOSS development if they like. Its free on the open source app stores.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@cornshark it's completely free in fdroid. Where are you looking ? ?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I searched for thumb key on the play store. Screenshot looks like this. Not sure what fdroid is. Some kind of third party market? My phone only seems to have the regular play store.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

@cornshark same. install fdroid from the apk on their website, of course you wont find it in the playstore.

i love this idea of a playstore tax, tbh ^^

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

@f4grx @ploum @thumbkey @dessalines It's nice but I still heavily depend on Hacker's Keyboard...