Review of own keyboard layout for Thumb-Key
Several months ago I discovered the alternative Android keyboard Thumb-Key which, instead of a typical keyboard layout (QUERTY and co.) uses a 9-key grid. At first, it looks similar to old mobile phones, but instead of multiple presses on one of the main nine keys, you swipe to one of eight directions.
Apart from that, Thumb-Key is also FOSS and privacy concious.
It has many layouts, Slovenian as well, but I didn't find it to my liking at first, so I made my own layout. Primarily it is intended for Slovenian, but I also wanted to keep English (q, w, x, y) and German letters (ä, ö, ü), because I use them occasionally and didn't want to switch layouts when I need them. The layouts are quite different between languages, because they are based on letter frequency.
I found some info on letter frequency of Slovenian on Wikipedia and based on that populated them main nine keys. The other letters and punctuation I arranged my percieved frequency of use. Up/down/left/right swipes for more common characters, diagonal swipes for less common ones.
Out came this layout. You can get it on Codeberg. However, I'd advise against that.
Several months of usage has shown that it's far from optimal. The authors of Thumb-Key have a few recommendations that I didn't follow (skipping rtfm).
- Alternate thumbs for vowels and consonants (Vowels on right side of keyboard, consonants on left). This naturally results in fast digram speeds.
- Prioritize bottom, and right side of keyboard. So EAO should be on the right side, and bottom to top, while TNS is on the left side.
The general rule is: popular vowels on the right, bottom to top, consonants on the left.
I guess that is why I often mix up a and e, mis-swipe / instead of c and others mistakes.
A redesign is in order. Once a usable version is ready, I will update the repo and write a post about it.