submitted 19 hours ago by HumbleExaggeration@feddit.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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A few days ago I started the search for an alternative keyboard to the common gboard. One keyboard that came up was Thumb-key. I find the concept of typing everything with one thumb really interesting. So I gave it a try and am using it from time to time (like right now). But the learning curve feels steep and I start to wonder, if this way of typing will ever come close to typing on a regular keyboard.

Is anybody using Thumb-key on a daily basis, and how fast can you type?

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[-] HumbleExaggeration@feddit.org 1 points 17 hours ago

Yeah I also struggle with the layouts. I feel like they are not optimal for German, even the German layout. Most of the letters that often come in pairs like mm or ll are locked behind swipe gestures, which makes it really hard to type them fast. I get, why the most common letters are in the top layer, but I think swiping twice the same letter takes so much more time than swiping a common letter once... Maybe I have to adjust it a little. As far as I understand it is possible to edit the layouts in the app.

[-] haerrii@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

In that case, I attached you a screenshot of my personal layout. I tried optimizing for

roughly qwertz positions to easen learning curve
most common german monograms, bigrams and some trigrams (confer how you'd input "sch" with a very quick diagonal tap tap swipe gesture with only one change in one dimension, staying on one axis)
keeping ergonomics in mind, optimized for right hand use and positioning more common letters with more easy to execute gestures, and having as few out of bounds gestures as possible
not ignoring english completely

I really should update my thumb key

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026

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