I have keyboards that utilize longpresses extensively and I have been considering migrating them to flicks. I’m hoping that enough experience with flicks has been gained by now where some best practices have begun to take shape.
I’m wondering if a keyboard should offer both longpress and flicks, or avoid doing so and only provide one approach? While my wish is to have a one-size-fits-all keyboard to meet everyone’s preference, is providing both approaches more error-prone or confusing to users?
Can flicks be toggled on/off in keyboard settings?
I’m hoping to avoid having a flick and non-flick version of a keyboard. But if that is the better approach, can the two mobile layouts be bundled into the same kmp download? Or should this be avoided also?
Are using flicks mechanically easier for a user than longpresses? Asking in another way, if a keyboard would support only one approach, which would be the recommended?
I think if you want to use flick to type what your keyboard is design to type, you should choose flick, because flick has less reaction time.
If you just want to store some symbols or characters seldom appear in text, or you have other way to type it out, you can choose long press, long press can store more symbols and less sensitive.
We use both flicks and longpresses in a single keyboard, but with care. Generally, I suggest having flicks only in one direction - south (down) - and then longpresses interoperate really well with that pattern. See for example sil_euro_latin. Flicks in multiple directions are possible but currently Keyman does not support hints for multiple directions, so they are not very discoverable.
No, there is no option to turn off flicks.
We do not encourage multiple keyboards in one kmp – it’s hard for the user to figure out which keyboard to use, and there are difficulties with documentation for more than one keyboard. Best to have just one keyboard if possible.
Longpresses are more discoverable, but flicks are faster. I recommend using south-flicks along with longpresses, and including the flick output in the longpress, for maximum discoverability and optimum ergonomics.
You’ll notice also on sil_euro_latin, that the south-flicks on the base (and shift) layers correspond to the numeric/symbol layer, which is also helpful for remembering and discovering.
Thanks @Cathaylab & @Marc for the explanations, they are helpful. I’ve installed the sil_euro_latin keyboard and it is both very clever and helpful to gain an understanding of the utility and intent for the flicks.
I had been thinking to apply flicks for Ethiopic syllable composition (like the screenshot), but I see now that it would require nimble fingers at a level not many people would possess:
Except for expert gamers (I’m not one). For a couple of decades now, there have been generations growing up with game controllers that have 4 buttons and directional controls on opposite sides, like this example:
This discussion on flicks stimulated my thinking quite a bit, and now I’m enticed to try out a keyboard based on game controller layout that might be a natural fit for these generations. It would be a 2-handed keyboard, so maybe it works better for tablets. To modify an Ethiopic keyboard, it might go something like this:
Where the “controller” keys are extra large and spaced away from other keys to avoid tapping them when flicking left and right. Superimposing the keys that the flicks would make:
The red letters wouldn’t really be there of course. But flick hints at each position would help, though could look cluttered on regular-sized keys. With the sil_euro_latin keyboard, I think it would be beneficial if the hint was at the bottom of the key, in the direction of the flick, something to consider.
Anyway… I’ll give the controller approach a try and will add flicks to existing keyboards to make it easier to input alternative letters like ህ → ኅ, ስ → ሥ, ጽ → ፅ , etc.
One more thing to be careful with on flicks – flicks near screen edges tend to be problematic – once you drag off the screen then Keyman can no longer tell that you are flicking (or you may end up activating system controls on the bottom edge). So south-flicks on bottom row are not recommended! (Similarly horizontal flicks on left/right screen edges, for the same reason)
On the top row, we have the banner space reserved in order to be able to support flicks and longpress up into that region of the screen – not an ideal solution but it works.
With my Keyboard “Winchus” I use both long-taps (easier but slower) and lots of flicks (fast but less discoverable, as Marc says).
I especially like flicks for punctuation. The M and period keys have lots of them. Drag the period left for a hyphen. Drag down and left from the period for a comma. Drag up and down for ¡ and !
Documentation was a bit of a beast. I managed to get some decent HTML table charts mapping out all the flicks:
Note that in my case the keyboard seeks to support all Quechua languages, and any given language user would only need to remember just a small handful of the non-punctuation flicks.
What I really need to do is have some short, to-the-point video tutorials made. Because those charts start on about page 30 and no one likes reading documentation!
