HeliBoard. However for swipe typing it'll take some practice to get used to, it's more sensitive to swipe accuracy and you may need to reset your muscle memory.
this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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How do you actually enable swipe typing? I have HeliBoard installed, looked through all the options, but it just doesn't. Pixel 8.
EDIT: It looks like you have to enable a closed-source swipe-typing library in Advanced settings at the bottom: "Load gesture typing library"
I see you already figured it out but for anyone who hasn't, you download a swipe library for heliboard Here by picking raw and then uploading it to heliboard in advanced settings>load gesture typing library.
I need to figure that out one of these days. I forgot to switch back to gboard if I really want to do that. I wish it was as simple as just enabling. But to go look up the procedure and what I need to download.
I'm not sure if you figured it out but for anyone who hasn't, you download a swipe library for heliboard Here by picking raw and then uploading it to heliboard in advanced settings>load gesture typing library.
No but thank you. It's just always been one of those things that only occurs to me for some reason when I couldn't dive into it. "I'm busy, it would be nice to swipe. I should look into that later". Later i've got plenty of time and don't mind typing regular. It's like a vicious cycle lol
I did that for a long time. I just had to go back in my comments to find the link to reply to you because I forgot how I did it lmao
Yes i should probably document it just in case as well.
Heliboard (with closed source swipe gesture library)
I've been putting up with Futo keyboard for privacy reasons even though it's not better than Swiftkey which has had the best predictions by far and had served well for many years
I am looking for a privacy friendly SwiftKey alternative, so I will give it a try. Seems like there is sadly not much alternative.
If you go with FUTO keyboard, do these as soon as you download it:
- Turn on the machine learning feature for swipe typing (entirely local - nothing about the keyboard phones home)
- Allow curse words
- Make autocorrect your removed, and I mean really force it
If you do these things, it will - eventually - figure out your typing habits. But it's worth it. I've been using it for a month or so and, outside of some odd quirks, it's working pretty well. Even has a clipboard manager and a "paste" button (for fat-fingerers like me), among other neat tools.
Oh, and don't forget to drop it into Obtainium so it can be updated, as it's not offered through any app store.
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There are plenty of alternatives, they're just all terrible
You can help improve and contribute your swipe typing data by swiping some sentences on their website: https://swipe.futo.org/
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I said a while back on Mastodon that people don't realise just how bad Gboard is. I don't understand how a company with so many resources sunk into machine learning can fuck up something as bread and butter as a keyboard.
I'm still gutted that Minuum Keyboard never got open sourced. It's the best keyboard I ever used.
Another vote for FUTO keyboard.
Except, the swipe feature really likes to autocorrect to the most outlandish words that have never entered into my vocabulary at any point in my nearly 40 years on this godforsaken planet.
FlorisBoard is open source and supports swipe
Thumb-key is also an interesting concept but very different with a higher learning curve
I thought they got rid of swipe for now because they were recreating it?
swipe has always worked for me with florisboard
EDIT: kinda funny that I'm downvoted when I literally typed this comment using swipe functionality on florisboard lol
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I tried it recently - no swiping. Maybe it's the language? Although it does say in the app it's been disabled.
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There's no comparison to GBoard. I've tried them all. GBoard is good at everything but specifically it is by far and away the best at text prediction and autocorrect.
Next best is FUTO keyboard.
Gboard never reached the level at which Swiftkey was at dual-language typing, at least for me. I'm Romanian native speaker and also use a lot of English. With Swiftkey I had almost no problems. With gboard I had to switch languages to make them work.
I'm surprised at how good Heliboard became lately at exactly this scenario. I have Romanian-English set and it works great.
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I find GBoard autoincorrect to be as bad as any other. I stopped using it because of that, and I've been on Android since 2009
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I tried many different keyboards but honestly nothing matched up to SwiftKey, now sadly owned by Microsoft, so I locked its internet access using RethinkDNS (or NetGuard)
FlorisBoard with the Material theme.
Tried many, but FlorisBoard's bugs bug me the least, not that there are many. The one feature I wanted was password manager autofill bar, FlorisBoard worked the best at the time and has been solid since. Material theme is nice too.
Thanks! Downloading now.
God, the autocorrect is horrible nowadays. Hey Google, team is a fucking word. No, I'm not talking about a team. Fucking figure it out.
Fucking Tram! Case and point.
I just wanted to say that, while Heliboard is a hell of a keyboard, I can't understand why nobody makes something close to keymonk keyboard. I never used a virtual keyboard that could get even close to that.
I've been using Microsoft Swiftkey for years. Haven't had any issues with it.
I only have Hacker's Keyboard installed because it's the only one that's stupidly simple while also giving a full standard keyboard complete with function keys and whatnot so I have as much control over remote applications as I do messing with them at home on the actual machine with a real keyboard.
When possible, I use Swype. I have the apk, and it works on most things.
When that's not possible, florisboard or heliboard. Both can do swipe typing, though neither is as good at it as swype.
Wow I didn't know Swype was still around I used that WAY back in the day. Like android 4-5...
That's still a benefit of Android. As long as you have the apk of an app, there's usually a good chance it'll keep working.
There's even a patched version on xda of Swype that lets it work on most devices, even though it no longer matches minimum android versions in the last official apk. It's kinda funny, my phone still runs it fine, and it's on 14, but I have a tablet on 13 that it won't allow it without jumping though hoops that are a pain in the ass (but that's Samsung, and they're dicks about a lot of stuff).
No problem at all with Gboard for me. In fact, it's the only one that can consistently do both German and Japanese for me.
I'm a swipe typer and I'm sticking with open-board-gesture-typing-v1.4.5.apk, which is some kind of fork of gboard before it went totally off the rails. The only complaint I have about it is that it decided to stop capitalizing "I" for some reason and I haven't been able to fix it, so I have to hit the suggestion each time.
OpenBoard is discontinued, the last update is from 2022.
Heliboard is continuation fork of OpenBoard, with more updates.
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