I can't seem to find it in any of the layouts, it'd have to be added. But also since thumb-key really doesn't have tap and hold, what are you trying to do?
termux and terminal emulators usually have a bar for these rare press and hold actions.
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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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.
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@dessalines @juche_fan this is something I miss from messagease, too. there were special gestures for ctrl and esc. (up and back from the space bar iirc.)
on messagease i would just do the ctrl or alt swipe then press a letter (etc) and it would do ctrl+letter, so useful for e.g. screen/byobu/tmux ctrl+a n without fiddling with special terminal app keyboards. also ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, ctrl+x, ctrl+z usually work in android apps and sometimes work better than the dedicated buttons for them
It seems some methods exist in the code and could be binded to keys using Yaml:
ToggleCtrlModeTrue ToggleCtrlModeFalse ToggleAltModeTrue ToggleAltModeFalse
I haven't figured out how to write the Yaml properly for that in the little text field to modify keys... but I think it could solve the problem. Does any one how this yaml text field works?
I found how to do the yaml, but that methods do not do that I was expecting... and therefore it doesn't solve the problem.
There are some recent unreleased code fixes related to this but I have no idea what your problem is so I can't solve it. You'll need to open up an issue in the github.
now if there's a way to get ctrl+alt on the messagease layouts would be a followup question, i don't want to learn a new button layout if i can avoid it, been using messagease since first term obama lol