What is the purpose of this keyboard?

[MXC48]

I already know that the goal is to implement machine learning for gesture recognition, but what I'm asking is: what is this keyboard intended to be used for?
Is it designed for developers and terminal users? For everyday use in conversations and searches -> for non-technical users?
Or is it ultimately just a proof of concept?
The target audience for the application will determine its design choices, for example in the user interface.
In any case, I'm happy to see a new alternative emerge!

[tribixbite]

I built it for personal use without a target audience in mind besides other termux users who might desire swipe typing.

1. Power users who want an extremely customizeable (all aspects tuneable, as many options for gesture controls/shortcuts as possible) kb

2. Privacy oriented or open source supporting users who want swipe typing

3. Please share your use-case / needs / desires / reasons (not just OP but anyone reading this)

[bet]

I experimented with it because, though I'm a happy Unexpected Keyboard user, and don't care for Swipe, I wanted to see what's new. I immediately saw word prediction --- I miss Swiftkey (abandoned it when it was sold, even before the new owner chose to let everyone's keyboard learn --- e.g. credit card numbers --- from everyone else).

The word prediction hooked me, though this is taking getting used to.

I keep Unexpected Keyboard handy to switch back to if I get stuck.

I should have mentioned, I use Termux a lot

[MXC48]

For me, a keyboard is for general use. I don't particularly use Termux or other terminals on my phone, so it's for chatting, searching, writing comments, etc. So it's true that I place a lot of importance on good suggestions, high-quality gesture typing and, above all, a clear and practical interface for fast typing. It's true that a more traditional interface like the one already available is the best for me (I'm a big fan of rounded edges and Material You), but I think it should always be possible to customise your keyboard as much as possible.

[cinnabar777]

I'm always testing keyboards. Used Swype when it was first released on Android until it wouldn't work anymore, still by far the best Swype typing keyboard. So I'm always looking to see if anyone is getting close.

CleverKeys is interesting but has a big problem to overcome, short gestures vs gesture typing —currently you cannot gesture type the word "as" no matter what settings used. This, IMO, is problematic for someone that does fast gesture typing, as you have to switch modes breaking your flow, but most gesture typing keyboards right now can't really do that fast of typing, or I've just gotten bad. Gboard had a version that was great but then reverted back to lots of incorrect gestures. Yandex is currently, IMO, the best and has really good next word suggestion, but I'm using Futo keyboard — the latest nightly build seems to be significantly better, but I'm using it with a custom 14,750 word dictionary which greatly improves gesture typing. That's the biggest problem with most swipe typing keyboards right now, excessively large dictionaries, 150,000+ words! Swype used about 45,000 words.

I use my phone for everything, but I'm not a software programmer, so I'm mainly doing a lot of text input, document editing, and posts like this. I don't even own a PC these days :)

So the key features I look for are:

1. Fast and accurate input
2. Good prediction
3. Good next word suggestion is nice
4. A really good text editing layout, Multiling O Keyboard is still the best.
5. Customization

Multiling O Keyboard is great but the developer never really gave the new version the attention it needed and hasn't really done any updates in years other than "compatible with Android version" thus a good number of bugs exist.

The great things about Multiling O Keyboard are:

1. Easy customization — layouts, theme, etc.
2. Every type of layout you can think of: text editing, functions, t9, compact QW-ER-TY, etc.
3. Good prediction for the different layouts, t9 and compact layouts work great. Sadly no gesture input for those layouts.

Really, if someone made Multiling O Keyboard with good gesture typing working for different layouts, T9 & qw-er-ty compact, you'd have an insane soft keyboard. There's nothing the unexpected keyboard has that Multiling O Keyboard didn't have long ago, but for some reason developers seem to ignore Multiling O Keyboard when they start innovating. It's a source of wealth IMO.

The other big feature is voice to text input and that's why I mainly use Futo keyboard.

Phone Whisper is trying to do a voice input that allows you access to the keyboard, but ultimately fails as it doesn't do quick streaming, so you could continuously talk with immediate output while using the keyboard for modifications, new paragraph, punctuation, numbers, etc. IMO that's the killer feature but everyone is using modules that are big block output and switching input from keyboard to voice instead of staying on the keyboard while voice input streams output.

Just my 2 cents.