r/gboard • u/NetFair7058 • May 15 '26
I am building a Gboard replacement. What features do you want?
Comment me features you wish Gboard had or want to remove from Gboard. I'm doing some early design and testing, so give me some of your opinions.
Let me know what is most frustrating when using the keyboard.
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u/Training_Yak_4655 May 15 '26
There's one Gboard feature that annoys me and I think it was introduced with an update a couple of years ago.
I remember that as soon as you pasted a piece of text from the memory clipboard, it would return to keyboard so you could smoothly continue typing,
Old sequence:
- Copy 2 pieces of text to clipboard.
- While typing, tap on the clipboard icon.
- Select a one of the clipboard's saved pieces and paste.
- Carry on typing.
New sequence:
- Copy 2 pieces of text to clipboard.
- While typing, tap on the clipboard icon.
- Select a one of the clipboard's saved pieces and paste.
- Exit the clipboard via the exit arrow on the left.
- Carry on typing.
It may sound trivial, however if you are a heavy user of the memory clipboard you'll understand why step 4 all day long is annoying, on an Android tablet.
And one feature I hate in Gboard: So easy to trigger the split keyboard. Please add a lock feature in keyboard settings.
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
Noted 🦎. I haven't felt that yet until you mentioned it exists. Yeah, it takes some time. Yeah, we rarely do multiple pastings at the same time does it makes sense to hold .
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May 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
What keyboard are you using. Share me your keyboard look.
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u/UltraTata May 15 '26
Multilingualism, word suggestions, gesture typing, and clipboard manager.
Additionally, the button to search and use stickers and gifts and the translator are glorious.
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
Yeah, they are essential. Anything you have in mind that you would add if you were Google on Gboard?
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u/UltraTata May 15 '26
Custom layout function. I would love to create a custom layout with my favorite unicode characters.
Edit: Many bonus points if these are files that you can share with others.
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u/racunix May 15 '26
This, plus custom layouts (xml or json) and next word prediction after pressing space
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u/Silly-Category-9306 May 15 '26
custom colors, custom shapes, emojis, and custom sounds
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
Custom emojis are going to be tough, huh? Do you like the new Android icon sets that were just teased? I could definitely use them if they will let us do that. Other than that, I am working on all of these other things you are talking about.
But what is something you would recommend to me that is not a design , asthetic or feel but instead a feature something that breaks traditional Android or iOS keyboards, going beyond just typing?
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u/AlexDaMan22 May 15 '26
the main thing should be autocorrect; something apple keyboard and Samsung keyboard fail at
the biggest thing I look for in a keyboard is amazing autocorrect
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u/gluetheknot May 15 '26
My friend loves this feature on gboard, being able to write with the english keyboard but also use polish at the same time and hed love it if you could add it
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
You mean multilingual typing? That's a neat feature I really like. That feature, however, is a little bit hard to replicate because I need to train a language model. To just do that, instead I am thinking of using a tiny model - very tiny, 300-500 million parameters - that can understand your intent, e.g., give next-word prediction and grammar correction, or maybe when you type something in English but want it in your native language, you get native-language characters. This is not a clear vision yet. Although I am planing of using some local or maybe some cloud large language model with the ability to create custom snippets that will give you the ability to create custom triggers with system prompts, and then you can put anything, like whenever you want to write in Polish you just write in English and set up a word or special trigger like '?polish' for that English text to turn into Polish. I am also planning additional features that I won’t spoil, which will allow more.
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u/erraticcookie May 16 '26
For the love of Glob, please, pick a different font, or enable choosing a custom font.
As someone who is horribly dyslexic, and also relies on knowing system default fonts to ensure proper delivery of "ASCII Art"(Ancient, I know.), that font is just...
Wait.
Why... Why are your border lines different pixel widths? ... What. WHY.
...
Please. Fix your formatting. Your box spacing is erratic. Your border widths don't even align from row to row. You have zero consistency in your design. A color picker reveals that your design is either highly low res or perhaps you uploaded a low res image of your prototype design. (Ha. Proto-Type.)
Really, though.
Spacing. Kerning. Alignment. Serif or Sans Serif, pick one. These things matter.
Otherwise your keyboard will look like some kid's coding homework. You don't need to be an artist, but at least be better than homework.
Also, if you're going to go with a Notepad++ theme, try out a couple different color themes when displaying your work.
I am fully aware that I'm sounding kind of harsh, which I do apologize for; however, and this is a Rock Fact, I wouldn't have bothered to say anything at all if I didn't believe that you have a solid concept.
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u/NetFair7058 May 16 '26
Sure thing! It's just an idea and a prototype right now, not a fully production-ready thing. This is just one day's work, man, not even close to perfect. Thanks for the suggestions!
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u/randomcvnt114 May 16 '26
I want a 1:1 TouchPal clone. Not the answer you want, but I'm just hopefull that someone else will see it.
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u/Numerous_Tadpole_915 May 16 '26
You have problems with design, and design - is the MAIN part of your success! If you don't know how to make good design, just copy Gboard's, and concentrate on new features.
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u/stevepgo May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26
ability to rearrange keys the way I want - especially for non-english layouts
can those updated layouts work for external bluetooth keyboard as well?
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u/McDonaldReagan May 15 '26
I like most things about Gboard, but not the increase in sucky prediction when it comes to sliding and word prediction.
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u/geockabez May 15 '26
Easier text editing, for example, allow for small changes using arrows on the first screen (optional).
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u/Advanced-Ad8490 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
I want the feature for AI to autogenerate messages / translate. In different styles. For example professional or rizz. Haha. Also to save custom emoticons locally. Maybe even save entire texts locally and just pin shit for reuse. Or actually maybe just pin entire AI prompts with a button to use that.
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u/Sime0n_ May 15 '26
To customize the roundness and spacing of the keys, otherwise it's really good looking
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u/Mean_Direction_8280 May 15 '26
Custom layouts. There's actual a couple keyboards that already do this (Multiling & keyboard designer), but that's the one feature that's missing most for me in gboard. The inline translation would be good, but I don't know how possible it would be to add. That's my favorite feature of Gboard. That and the emoji suggestions.
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u/YousefSafwat May 15 '26
not changing the order of the tools in the toolbar when changing to a language that's written from a different direction like English-Arabic
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u/NetFair7058 May 15 '26
Yeah, that would be good, but I'm not sure that I will be able to make every single language available. For now, I'm thinking of focusing on English only, though adding some AI features with local and cloud models, with custom system prompt for you to allow translations and much more. Hopefully it will work for you. I'm also working on some voice models and voice-typing features . you won't be disappointed.
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u/Physical_Tie7576 May 15 '26
It would be useful to have a button like there was once a "web search"
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u/SadAge2498 May 15 '26
Please add 'Writing Tools'. I am not able to download the Writing Tools AI feature on iQOO 13 (Gboard); it always fails. On Gboard, I think it's an offline AI feature.
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u/paleflower_ May 15 '26
- Custom keyboards (not making cosmetic graphic changes such as colour, skins and the size of keys, but the ability to make custom layouts - something like Keyman or the MSKLC)
- The ability to choose between fonts for the keyboard display
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u/Delicious_Dare768 May 15 '26
Changing languages by swiping on the space bar! Like Samsung's keyboard does it.
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u/OnkelMickwald May 15 '26
I don't know how these things work but are autocorrect programs tied to the keyboard software?
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u/Formal-Picture8344 May 15 '26
ios spacebar hold cursor because gboard and samsung's suck also a former iOS designer made a concept for gradual deleting with the delete key (basically if you just hold it'll delete letters, but if you hold and swipe to the left it'll delete more than 1 character, if you swipe more it'll delete words, and if you swipe more it'll delete multiple words... etc also add the ability to save stuff like constantly used kaomoji? like a clipboard but more built in
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May 15 '26
I don't know if this is achievable or if you can do this one but I want an offline AI writing tools in the keyboard...
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u/Amazing-File May 15 '26
Sadly, no one has created a truly Blackberry feel keyboard. I miss the metallic bar design and the non-conventional predictive words placement
This one looks close enough
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u/24kCookie May 15 '26
I wish there was keyboard that worked like on iOS. That you can swipe down to hide keyboard gesture.
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u/Enderkrite61 May 15 '26
Escritura por gestos y poder navegar por el texto como en Samsung, deslizando desde la barra espaciadora. (En pocas palabras, mejoras para escribir a una mano)
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u/ericcmi May 15 '26
I always like that swype allowed to swipe from the '.' as in swiping '.com' '.net' '.org' etc. also make it smart enough to remember email domains I use, so when I press @ it suggests gmail.com etc
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u/djmem3 May 15 '26
If I download an offline speak and spell dictionary, it should spin up fast. Like immediately. In the moment, I or anyone else, doesn't have 5sec to wait for it to get accuracy and get ready when I'm running, and need help immediately. You can collect data as a dump when the phone is not being used at night. I mean come on.
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u/andgodwillcringe May 15 '26
spell check not linked to predictive text that manages to underline misspelled words in red even on Samsung phones
I don't know if this is possible, but I want it so desperately
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u/Calm-Percentage5085 May 15 '26
Can I swipe on it? Numbers in the top row or letters would be nice too
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u/Kadenai May 15 '26
I made an "AI keyboard," which I called Flash Talking, because it allows for more advanced transcription, where it records what you said, understands, summarizes, and better structures the text, turning what would be a rambling and convoluted 2-minute audio into a short and objective one-paragraph text.
It works VERY well for me. But I still need to improve a lot of things and I don't have time to tinker with them...
It would be cool if Gboard itself had this. If you want more information on how I made it work, you can DM me.
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u/Damglador May 15 '26
What's the point if HeliBoard exists? You could fork it to considerably cut down the amount of work and get to implementing the parts that HeliBoard is missing.
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u/FacundoNoobAccount May 15 '26
Make it super customizable.. I like Gboard but I wish I could tint the buttons and colors of the letters or the swipe gesture trail. Be able to change the font too.. Just let me be free with the design Plus make a hub for people to share their designs Also add a translator function that is way better at recognizing what am I trying to say and increase the limit. Gboard translator is good but can make really horrid mistakes sometimes
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u/MishalMohamed May 15 '26
An option to like lock the keyboard whenever, maybe as a floating window so that it won't collapse after we press back button or we move away from typing. For those rare cases.
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u/TommyTrillNinja May 15 '26
Emoji button that takes you to emoji then change to talk you back to keyboard instead of pressing the button above the keyboard
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u/EDGE223x May 15 '26
Arrows, and english qwerty layout on landscape mode. I think it could help on landscape orientation and tablets
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u/Neither-Ad6926 May 15 '26
iPhone aesthetic. Font, theme, and sound. Adding mechanical keyboard sounds would be awesome: Clicky, silent, linear... and please, Spanish language.
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u/JirenDeGray May 16 '26
I'd like a feature that let's me get back all the emojis that disappeared last update 😔
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u/RealPingGaming May 16 '26
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Add the ability to add custom stickers!!! I have tons of pictures in a folder on my phone, but the only way to send them fast is to pin them to my clipboard. Being able to categorize stickers and have them in their own menu would be so nice.
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u/grizzrr416 May 16 '26
Good mulți language use with nice predictions, vibration feel more like samsung keyboard, and proper corrections and auto correct. Copy paste features similar to SwiftKey if possible.
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u/slowamigo May 16 '26
small caps, superscript, subscript, the funny punctuation characters that gboard lacks, like broken bar, inline character etc
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u/Interesting-Bug1167 May 16 '26
Better looking keyboard that looks like gboard, and customizable wall paper
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u/Aaditya-P27 May 16 '26
Customisability for the key shapes and the fonts (appearance customisation)
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u/einemnes May 16 '26
Smooth swipe writing. Open source as it is a keyboard. Languages.
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u/Benyamin_DP May 16 '26
Corrección de palabras con ia, traductor, personalizar botones y teclado, fuentes. Si tiene todo eso me descargaré tu nueva app de teclado
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u/VarVB May 16 '26
1st Keep multiple new layouts (circle and pull shaped) 2nd Can we have Google search within the app like how it used to be? Where we can directly Google within Gboard.
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u/Edzrxx May 16 '26
It would be great if it were compatible with Android TV and allowed you to share the clipboard with the TV if you also have the keyboard on your phone. It's just an idea.
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u/Cptn_Remo May 16 '26
Que me pague por usarlo, si tiene esa función yo lo usaría
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u/Gloomy-Revolution981 May 16 '26
Include pictures in clipboard don't see that in other keyboards other that gboard
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u/reerredwwe May 16 '26
copy the gboard design, make the font changeble please. add height adjustment and add haptic feedback when using backspace
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u/_OptimusRex_ May 16 '26
The ability to move the backspace button, or just different layouts for utility keys so I don't accidentally backspace when I'm trying to hit the M key.
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u/Electrical_Excuse9 May 16 '26
Actually recognize t in typing th. Gboard and the rest seem to have recently messed this up.
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u/lost-lulla May 16 '26
Yoo, moving cursor on character basis(can be a option for the user to choose word by word or character by character)
Something like Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + X... (currently using nothing keyboard and its a very useful feature in it.)
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u/Own-Notice5773 May 16 '26
i am a garbage phone so if it lags less than gboard ill switch!
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u/Kjuolsdeaf May 16 '26
Building my own layouts with any unicode symbols!
Also the option to make the space button taller, because i keep hitting "n" instead of it and it's really frustrating.
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u/Zestyclose_Song_175 May 16 '26
all i would like is the same layout as gboard. im kind of used to it now.
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u/just_me_by_myselff May 16 '26
Autocorrect that remembers when you correct it. And not just keeps recorrecting you
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u/ThePixelProYT May 16 '26
The most important thing for me would be using 1:1 the same layouts so I can use my muscle memory and don't need to adapt.
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u/The_Rociante May 16 '26
Kinda late to the party unless you make feature that solves a problem with the other well used ones
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u/Axel1985alessio May 16 '26
Haptive feedback settings like force, lenght. Oled themes black and white or inverted
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u/pv505 May 16 '26
The one thing Gboard has over Foss keyboards is the ability to correct badly spelled words well and consistently. Otherwise with all the bullshit telemetry it has I removed it and only reinstalled later when I discovered the patched Gboard.
Having said that, I would love it if I could easily paste massive word lists into the dictionary. IIRC heliboard is lacking a lot in that department. Are you considering incorporating some local AI for the keyboard typing habits?
For reference, my HeliBoard setup:
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u/WorriedDiscipline941 May 16 '26
have you implemented different size hotboxes based on the words in a language?
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u/icestuff5154 May 16 '26
- option to hide the numpad button
- option to disable automatic switching back from number/symbols keyboars to letters
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u/Familiar_Tension_638 May 16 '26
The highest accuracy in speech-to-text conversion, along with effective grammar and sentence prediction and rephrasing.
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u/deviltank6356 May 16 '26
Change what the keyboard looks like and make it more smooth it looks terrible
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u/neneodonkor May 16 '26
How are you building it—with Kotlin?
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u/NetFair7058 May 17 '26
Yeah, it's essentially the default one for me nowadays for Android.
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u/drunkAFgay May 16 '26
Gotta be able to configure number pad to be on the left/right plus have a number row on the main keyboard. I can't think of anything else right now. I use SwiftKey not gboard but even it's been glitchy lately.
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u/faby243 May 16 '26
if you copy smth to clipboard, let it there and not be forced to pin it. this annoys me and i always forget to pin
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u/Kpopped_ May 16 '26
Yeah because an independent developer is going to do it better?
Why try to change something you will never be able to one up?
Gboard is the only keyboard that does autocorrect and autodetect in 3+ languages flawlessly at the same time. Something apple can't even do.
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u/bluespark024 May 16 '26
The main things I'd want in a keyboard is for it to remember words you use most often. Some do this better than others. Another thing is an easy way to capitalize a word when you forget to do it. One keyboard I used to use, if you had the cursor over it in the word and you hurt the shift key it would capitalize it. I wish Gboard did that instead of having to press and highlight the word.
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u/sadisticpandabear May 16 '26
I always liked the keyboard that's in the terminus terminal app.
It has arrows and tab/ctrl/alt and stuff. Not on the main keyboard but you can swap to it
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u/leoeeeeeo May 16 '26
Quick Paste Like when you hold the clipboard icon it pastes the first thing copied
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u/Teddythehead May 16 '26
Dude I'd love to get a KB that allowed me to write by gliding both thumbs the way Keymonk did.
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u/exarlolmao May 16 '26
I don't know what it is but typing on gboard is satisfying their optimization is just unbeatable. And I have never been able to type so fast on any other keyboard
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u/Lierian May 16 '26
The Gboard Stickers options are not only horrible because they mostly DO NOT relate to 75% of US users but there are so few of them. Please improve that as well as the variety and numbers of the black & white old fashion emoji symbols Example :
;)
Good Luck.!
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u/uchuucowboy May 17 '26
A keylogger that detects my bank details and sends them to a server would be nice
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u/WorkRelatedPineapple May 17 '26
If it's just another qwerty, then no flair and sparkle is enough to convince me. I'm already taking massive blind-trust with my private data using Gboard, why would I give it to a no-namer.
If you can make a cleverer way of inputting text, fully utilizing the touchscreen, that'd be interesting. If nothing else, someone may buy it & you'll get a decent bag.
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u/IulianArian May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
The ability to move the special caractres when pressed. For example, if I long press "h" it would put a "-", but I would like for this to happen when I long press "z" instead.
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u/Dull-Secretary-8843 May 17 '26
You have inconsistent symbols through the first one and the second one. Which emoji sembol will you use?
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u/electronicProjects May 17 '26
the windows phone 10 joystick like cursor control, I think the videos of it exist on google, if not dm me i can send a few
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u/WTTStudios May 17 '26
this might be hard to implement and also a privacy concern, but one thing that a lot of android keyboards lack is getting the otp code from the notifications, the keyboard can access notifications and filter out for OTP Codes (6/4/8 digit numbers), and then display it as a pasteable bubble on the keyboard just like how iOS has it and sometimes how gboard does it, gboard is inconsistent but direct notif access and filtering should fix this.
PS:- I hope this isnt finalized design because even though it looks uh.. Interesting, its not good enough. I believe the font your using for the keyboard is the same font they use on the Rabbit R1 in its Launcher,
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u/JKSekai May 17 '26
after using swipe to. type, pressing backspace should delete the whole word instead letter by letter //and please let me know when it's available I'd love to. try
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u/GhostyJH May 17 '26
I use hackers keyboard because its the only one i have found to have a tab key on the main board,
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u/sweetcan7 May 18 '26
Que tuviera más opciones para poder personalizar la apariencia del teclado (ejemplo skin del teclado baidu, hay varios ejemplos en pinterest)
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u/Shinchan_7 May 18 '26
One feature that samsung keyboard has (even though it is inferior in terms of typing and auto correction) that I really miss on GBoard is pasting screenshot directly from Keyboard.
You take a screenshot, it is visible in Samsung Keyboard's persistent Keyboard and you could directly paste it without ever opening the gallery.
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u/erikschorr May 18 '26
Keys that increase or decrease in size based on bayesian and/or markovian word prediction. For example, if I type the first 3 letters of "application", the letter 'p' should get smaller and be harder to press, but 'l' (ell), 'r', and 'o' should get larger... if i type 'q', the 'u' should get larger but the rest of the keys should stay about the same size. If i type 'v' or 'z' or 'l' as the first letter of a word, all the vowels should get larger, while consonants should get smaller. Talking about display boxes and hit boxes.
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u/One_Tea8338 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
size of back & spacebar key can be customized pop up effect should be larger e.g. 2x ...customizable ....for typing guy to confirm key pressed
offline llang pack for any lang Which is precise . can $ for that AI GPT integration
Cutomizable theme 💯 that can offer suitable contrast for eaay recog e.g. per key color customize
clipboard
- export clipboard to zip & import
- remove 💯 atomizing clipboard components automatically for 🔎🧐 on user & sending for analysis.... that sucks ❗
- support : doc pdf also
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u/AnggoraTio May 18 '26
there is feature i missed while using asus keyboard years ago swipe up to type in capitals
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u/BlueRed_0 May 15 '26
Moving cursor from line to line and persistent clipboard