Thumb-Key installed on a relative's 'phone. I didn't enable anything fancy, or enable the #MessageEase compatibility layouts. But I was explicitly asked to install Spanish and French alongside English.

I made the relative make the layout switching gesture multiple times, so that it stuck. Otherwise I knew what the first panicked 'phone call would be.

First panicked 'phone call: all of the letters have disappeared from the keyboard.

There is a setting in the Thumb-Key settings called "Hide letters", and it had been switched on.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dessalines.thumbkey/

There's another option called 'show toast' and is a prime example of programmers writing for programmers instead of for users. 'toast' is specialized Android developer jargon. Users won't know that it means showing the layout names for a brief period when one switches layouts. They'll be wondering what the Hell bread has to do with a keyboard.

#ThumbKey #Android #SoftwareDevelopment #ComputerProgramming

Durante un tiempo voy a usar el teclado #ThumbKey, a ver si me vuelvo a acostumbrar al estilo porque en su momento me encantaba #MessageEase

Edit: La web del proyecto es https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key y allí se indican los distintos métodos de instalación disponibles

I finally got around to installing ThumbKey, an alternative keyboard input method for Android.

I was braced for a mediocre clone of #MessageEase.

It is better than MessageEase.

I particularly like that with the "writer" layouts I can enter em-dashes and ellipses as a matter of course, and that the "compose" layouts allow easy input of accented characters. The return-swipe to get a one-off capital, overriding auto-caps, also helps with FediVerse CamelCase.

Goodbye, GBoard!

#InputMethods

Musings on Input Devices

https://blog.narf.ssji.net/2024/02/29/musings-on-input-devices/

My main input devices are an Ergodox with blank keycaps in a Dvorak layout, and an Evoluent Vertical Mouse. My mobile uses a 9-keys swipe-based keyboard (MessageEase until recently, now Thumb-Key with a compatible layout). People sometimes ask me about this, and then I talk to them for way longer than they signed up for. Perhaps a written summary would save some in the future (but do ask if you want a chat!).

#8pen #Dvorak #Ergodox #EvoluentVerticalMouse #KinesisAdvantage #MessageEase #ThumbKey #Wristease