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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dessalines@lemmy.ml
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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 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by f4grx@chaos.social to c/thumbkey@lemmy.ml
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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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[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago

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

[–] FromPieces@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I already spent dozens of hours learning dvorak, what's another esoteric input method?

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My journey on desktop keyboards was from qwerty, then dvorak for like 5 years, then halmak for many years now.

It only takes about one painful week to get back up to about 80% of your speed anyway. Much less work than trying to learn another language.

[–] FromPieces@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I have some vague memories from around when I started dvorak that there were other, yet more efficient keyboard schemes but I don't remember looking much into them... Let me google halmak!

Edit: Oh shit! I typed that on the default google keyboard...

[–] ryokimball@d3f4ult.space 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] ryokimball@d3f4ult.space 2 points 3 months 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

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 3 points 3 months ago

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

[–] GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months 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) :)

[–] TomViolence@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 2 points 3 months 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.

[–] TomViolence@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months 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.

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 1 points 3 months 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 :)

[–] leah@blahaj.social 1 points 3 months ago

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

[–] cornshark@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Jesus Christ, it's $20??

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] cornshark@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months 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.

[–] f4grx@chaos.social 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months 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 ^^

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months 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.