What are some helpful resources to learn to touch type on smartphones?

I can touch type with a physical keyboard, which helps somewhat with trying to type on smartphone virtual keyboards, but I still find myself way clumsier and error-prone on them when I try to touch tap-type on them.

For the most part I’ve worked around this via swipe/gesture-typing on virtual keyboards, but even that method is error-prone. So, I’d like to try to learn to tap-type similar to how I know how to touch type, but many resources I find are for physical keyboards instead, so…Any help here?

Siegfried,

I guess you coud try one of those web pages for regular keyboard input training.

Anyway, i struggle with the same shit. Another recommendation, disable the auto corrector.

Noodle07,

Seeing how annoying it is to type on my steam deck I’m considering going back to T9 lol

satans_crackpipe,

…

…

I guess I have to block this community because the name is a lie.

andrewth09,

monkeytype.com! Offers typing challenges and tracks your progress.

bluGill,
bluGill avatar

If you must type go to a real computer. A bluetooth keyboard might work too.

shasta,

Of course! Just bring your laptop with you when you need to send a text message from the grocery store.

iiGxC,

github.com/dessalines/thumb-key this can be pretty quick once you get used to it

rufus,

Looks nice. Anyone good advice which layout to choose to type 60% German and 40% english? There are several german ones available.

iiGxC,

No clue, sorry. Looking at the list, I’d go with “multilingual thumb-key” or just thumb-key. Messageease is the proprietary keyboard thumb key is based on, and I think more thought has been put into making even more optimized layouts for thumbkey, so I’d guess the messageease one is a bit outdated, and I think there might be a two hand mode that “type-split” is for but idk

rufus,

thx for the background info. I’ll try them.

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

I use the deutsch symbols messageease layout as it’s the only German layout with symbols on the main keyboard. There’s also deutsch multilingual thumbkey if you’re fine with {``^ etc. being on the numpad.

rufus,

Thanks. Deutsch multilingual thumb-keys has them, too.

i’m soo slow, typing this ;-)

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

Me too still. It gets better though.

0x4E4F, (edited )

OK, what if I just care for privacy and I’m happy with the QWERTY layout?

I’d love to ditch Gboard, but it has my native language in it, plus word underline when misspelling words. I don’t use predictive text or anything like that, just underline (I hate predictive text, it messes up my train of thought).

Alternatives?

Wistful,
@Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Florisboard is nice.

iiGxC,

Florisboard, openboard, anysoftkeyboard

0x4E4F,

Which of them offer spelling check underline?

Wistful,
@Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

You can enable spell check underline even for keyboards that don’t have it, by changing which app it uses for spell checker specifically. In my case it’s under Android settings >> System >> Languages & input >> Spell checker (under the Tools category), It might be different on your phone, in that case I guess you can just search for “Spell checker” and then u can use Gboard for spell checking for example.

0x4E4F,

That’s just it. It’s set to Gboard spell checker, but it doesn’t work in Jerboa.

Wistful,
@Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Yeah, I just tested it in Jerboa…I guess in some apps it just doesn’t work, probably depending on how the text box is implemented in the app or something, I’m not sure.
I didn’t have trouble with it so far because it has been working for all the apps that I use.

federation on my lemmy instance is broken, so this message will probably arrive very late

0x4E4F,

That is what puzzled me as well. It litelarly works in every other app, except Jerboa. In have no idea why, and I have asked this same question a few times here on Lemmy, but no one seems to know the answer.

ALostInquirer,

I’ve not tried Florisboard yet, but OpenBoard doesn’t have it (neither in the main build nor forks from what I can tell) and nor is it available in AnySoftKeyboard’s default install, but it’s highly customizable so it may be an option there.

That said, isn’t spellcheck underlining more frequently in the apps you’re typing into rather than the virtual keyboard? Tbh I hadn’t ever noticed it in Gboard before, but I haven’t used it in a little while (though in looking into its settings I see it now, I guess I thought it’d been the other apps instead the whole time).

0x4E4F, (edited )

That said, isn’t spellcheck underlining more frequently in the apps you’re typing into rather than the virtual keyboard?

That is something that has always puzzled me, and yes, I believe you’re right.

But, the confusing part for me is, Gboard has a spellcheck option, and if I disable it, it doesn’t underline words when typing (in apps that normally check spelling).

But, let’s take Jerboa for example. It doesn’t work in Jerboa. No matter if enabled or disabled, there is no spellcheck in Jerboa, period.

And that is why things are confusing. Is it the apps that do the spellcheck or the keyboard 🤔.

For me, it would be logical if the keyboard does it (since it’s software, you can easilly add this option), just reports back to the software whether it should underline the word or not. But I could be wrong about this since I’m not a dev.

iiGxC,

Idk if that’s a feature keyboards have or if it’s more on the os side

0x4E4F,

Have no idea. I just know that Swift only does word suggestion, couldn’t find an option to just underline words.

squeakycat,

I’ve been trying it out and I like it a lot! Haven’t switched yet though.

MedicPigBabySaver,

Learn swype type… much faster, imo. I’m shocked how few people i see use it.

Fal,
@Fal@yiffit.net avatar

The swype predictions have gotten worse and worse over the years

MedicPigBabySaver,

On which board? My Gboard rocks. I barely look at any predictions.

ALostInquirer,

Fwiw that’s what I primarily do, but it’s felt a little slower and still error-prone, whereas I’d think/hope direct tap-typing might mitigate both.

MedicPigBabySaver,

Well, it’s definitely an individual timing skill. Only you’ll know which is better. I personally fly via swipe.

Hellstormy,
@Hellstormy@lemmy.world avatar

I tried that out like years ago for the first time and didn’t really get the hang of it. But i just activated it again and wow, i didn’t expect it to be that fast and intuitive for me.

MedicPigBabySaver,

It rocks.

bionicjoey,

I think it’s more a matter of knowing the qwerty layout and trusting that the autocorrect will help you if you mess up.

ALostInquirer,

Tbh that’s probably correct, and the differences may be from me avoiding autocorrect as much as possible because of obnoxious stuff like it persistently trying to correct fav words like fuck

bionicjoey,

Over time it figures out which words you use and doesn’t clobber your vernacular as much. You also can get good at watching the suggestions and picking the right one rather than finishing typing the word

bluGill,
bluGill avatar

Except it has learned my most common misspellings now

driving_crooner,
@driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br avatar

Can you even touch type on a screen without the feedback of physical keyboards?

ALostInquirer,

From what I’ve seen of some folks, it at least seems like it, but maybe I’m mistaken and it’s more experience with tap-typing.

FuglyDuck,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Nope. Not reliably any how. Touch typing relies on locating the F and J keys; which is why they have those raised bumps.

Now what you can do, is practice a similar tactic; except you’ll have to look at the screen to localize,

Worx,

Not as well as on a physical keyboard, but I can. I know how wide my phone is and I hold it in the same grip every time, so I can get it roughly correct and most mistakes are fixed by autocorrect anyway.

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