I’ve by no means been the kind of individual to obsess over keyboard apps. A keyboard is a keyboard, proper? Effectively, Gboard had all the time sat on the backside of my display screen, auto-correcting my typos and suggesting phrases with an nearly unsettling accuracy. The issue with that unsettling accuracy, it seems, is strictly that: it is unsettling. Gboard features a “Share utilization statistics” telemetry possibility, and disabling it’s the solely solution to cease it from transmitting keyboard utilization statistics and snippets of your typing to Google’s servers.
Even with these settings toggled off, the truth that you want a guidelines to cease your keyboard from narrating your life to a company was an excessive amount of overhead. That was the nudge I wanted. I went on the lookout for one thing cleaner. I truly examined a number of open-source options to Gboard earlier than I finally discovered FlorisBoard.
Associated
This good new Android keyboard makes typing easy
I communicate and this keyboard sorts, and it is rattling good.
FlorisBoard is a free, open-source keyboard
Neighborhood-built, privacy-first, and unbothered by your typing habits
FlorisBoard is constructed with a transparent concentrate on usability, customization, and, importantly, privateness. It runs beneath the Apache 2.0 license, so the complete codebase is out within the open on GitHub for anybody who cares to examine it. And that transparency is not only for present. The app’s privateness coverage is fairly express about how issues are dealt with: something it accesses or shops stays in your gadget.
Getting it put in is easy. You’ll be able to seize it from F-Droid or sideload the APK from GitHub in the event you already know how one can manually set up or sideload apps on Android. I went with F-Droid, which is becoming given the entire open-source angle. As soon as it is in your telephone, setup entails the app strolling you thru enabling the keyboard in your Android settings, then setting it because the default — three steps, completed.
One of many first issues I tinkered with was the theming system. Proper out of the field, you get a handful of fresh, well-designed choices like Floris Day, Floris Night time, and some borderless variants. There’s additionally assist for Materials You, so if you’re unfamiliar with what it’s and Android’s strategy to theming, it mainly means the keyboard can dynamically pull colours out of your wallpaper in case your telephone helps it. You’ll be able to even have themes swap robotically based mostly on the time of day, with dawn and sundown controls if you wish to get exact.
Extra fascinating is the Addons Retailer. The group has put collectively a bunch of third-party themes you possibly can obtain and drop proper into the keyboard. The Catppuccin pack is an effective instance. It comes with a number of variants like Latte, Frappé, Macchiato, and Mocha, together with borderless variations of every. All the pieces is managed contained in the app by means of a built-in add-on supervisor, so you are not poking round in file folders making an attempt to make it work. It is all neatly contained, which I respect.
It does greater than faucet and sort
Smartbar, clipboard, gestures, and the emoji colon trick
The strip that runs above the keyboard — FlorisBoard calls it the Smartbar — does plenty of work. It homes undo and redo buttons, which, once you’re enhancing a protracted message, you will notice you really need usually. There is a clipboard shortcut, a one-tap emoji panel, a microphone for voice enter, and a three-dot overflow menu that expands right into a second row of fast actions. Within the second row, you possibly can toggle one-handed mode, swap on autocorrect, pull up navigation arrow keys for exact cursor placement, reduce, paste, choose all, or conceal the keyboard, all with out leaving no matter app you are in. It capabilities like a compact toolbar that retains your most-needed actions inside thumb’s attain.
The clipboard supervisor, specifically, is a function I lean on rather a lot. It’s extremely helpful, and in the event you aren’t utilizing one, you are most likely ignoring your Android keyboard’s finest function. It was actually one of many causes I caught with Gboard for thus lengthy. FlorisBoard handles it in a really related means. You’ll be able to maintain a operating historical past of copied gadgets, set a restrict to forestall it from getting out of hand, and pin something you do not wish to lose. There’s additionally a small however considerate contact the place lately copied textual content can pop up instantly within the Smartbar for fast entry, particularly helpful once you’re hopping between apps and copying issues in fast succession. Once more, similar to Gboard.
Then there are gestures, which add a little bit of velocity when you get used to them. You’ll be able to swipe in several instructions throughout the keyboard to set off actions, and the area bar doubles as a form of cursor scrubber, letting you slide by means of textual content extra exactly. In the event you’re into emojis, there is a neat shortcut baked in too. Begin typing a colon adopted by a number of characters, and the keyboard will recommend matching emojis proper there within the Smartbar, much like how platforms like Slack or Discord deal with it.
FlorisBoard, sadly, lags in some methods
Value realizing earlier than you commit
FlorisBoard remains to be in beta, and that is most evident in a single space. There aren’t any phrase strategies or spell checking within the present model. The app would not attempt to conceal that both. It is spelled out within the Typing settings, and the developer has already stated that strategies are excessive on the checklist for the following huge replace. Nonetheless, if predictive textual content is a giant a part of the way you kind, that is one thing you will really feel fairly rapidly.
Glide typing can also be lacking for now. That is on the roadmap too, however it’s being rebuilt from the bottom up alongside a brand new structure engine, so it would take a little bit of time. Exterior of these two areas, although, the app is strong. You should use it day-to-day with out a lot friction. However these two options carry plenty of weight, and relying on the way you kind, they is likely to be onerous to miss.
Do you have to make the swap?
In the event you kind rapidly, rely closely on autocomplete, or dwell and die by swipe-to-type, FlorisBoard is not fairly able to be your solely possibility but. However in the event you’re bored with your keyboard app realizing extra about your typing habits than your journal does, and also you kind with affordable accuracy, or are keen to commerce predictive textual content for privateness and a superb function set, it is well worth the experiment. I got here in skeptical and stayed as a result of it earned it.
OS
Android
Worth mannequin
Free
FlorisBoard is a privacy-focused, open-source keyboard app for Android, that includes modular layouts, wealthy customization, multilingual assist, clipboard administration, and gesture controls, prioritizing person information safety with out adverts or trackers.
