Thumb-Key

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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.

founded 2 years ago

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dessalines@lemmy.ml

Full-Width Thumb-Key (github.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by cicko@lemmy.ml to c/thumbkey@lemmy.ml

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Hi!

I've (already) opened the issue on GitHub and that can/should be kept for the final technical specs.

https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key/issues/602

I'd like to open the thread here to work out and discuss any details.

The layout would use the full width and is suited for two-hand typing:

Some of my immediate questions would be:

Does this fit the idea behind the ThumbKey app? It is for thumb typing, after all.
How to get a good layout? The hype is on AI but people have been doing this through trial and error for a while now.

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[–] cicko@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

In regards to the exact placement, I find it hard to combine the outright principles (optimizations) behind Dvorak and Thumb-Key, especially the two-thumb layout. They all have their issues they are trying to resolve.

I prefer the alternating keys to rolling-keys. Especially when typing on a screen. That makes Dvorak a better fit than other layouts.

Dvorak layout, when preparing for Thumb-Key, ends up being like this