This thread is ONLY to talk about Keyboards, Notes, Maps and Music Players. I add video Music Players because probably some people want to know about good FOSS alternatives.
Little context
spoiler
Why not build a megathread with the best and most reliable FOSS apps too help someone who want to join on the bright side of open source?
We (because this is not from me, this is from us) need to share thoughts, ideas and all things you want to say. Dont be shy. Upvote the comments you like and agree; disagree and tell why you disagree. This is will be different from others threads because this need a proper user opinion, and your opinions will be VERY important to build this. In short, your opinions and thoughts will be the fundamental source to build this.
I will read ALL comments to build this. Even if this has a million comments, I’m going to waste time reading it. Whatever it takes.
Your opinions about it are CRUCIAL and FUNDAMENTAL, because your opinions is the main-base to build the megathread.
Please, consider share your ideas and thoughts about apps on previous threads. Your opinions are really important to build final megathread. You can upvote or downvote posts so that comments gain strength and agreement between the community.
I yearn for the day a FOSS keyboard for Android will have functional multilingual autocorrect. Most of the typing I do on my phone is in Frenglish and every FOSS keyboard I’ve tried has made it impossible to have autocorrect turned on. They always default to autocorrecting in either only English or only French which is just very frustrating.
Compare that to SwiftKey, which not only has no issues with mixed languages, also learns my texting patterns, such as typing j’fais rather than je fais. I just don’t give it any permissions, including network access. It’s one of the only proprietary things on my phone but I couldn’t use my phone without it.
Have you tried this active fork of OpenBoard? The dev added support for multilingual typing months ago. This has Material You theme as well as glide typing (needs to be turned on manually).
Really happy with this fork, using it for several months now. Also occasionally Unexpected Keyboard for termux / ssh / code …
Wow thanks, exactly what I’ve been looking for!
Very impressed with the number of issues that have been opened in just the last few months. It’s clear there is a lot of interests in a FOSS keyboard. There are requests for emoji and gifs in there as well.
Unfortunately I, like many other, probably can’t use a keyboard that doesn’t have gifs or emoji support.
I really hope this fork takes off with contributors who can join in.
I’ve just installed it and it appears that you still have to manually switch between languages, otherwise it won’t correct your attempts to write in another language.edit: looks like you need to long press on your preferred dictionary and add multilingual typing for it to work. it’s quite decent, especially when you set autocorrect to “very aggressive”, otherwise it will have difficulties recognising when you’re trying to type in the secondary language.
I was honestly hoping for a reply like this when I commented. I’ll give it a try, thanks! 😊 I’d love to ditch SwiftKey.
Do open an issue on GitHub for whatever you feel needs work. This project is being actively worked upon, I’ve seen stuff get implemented within a day even!
After looking around the settings a bit more, I noticed the “keyboard height scale” and “bottom padding scale” options, I set both of these to 80% and it’s perfect!
Thanks again the the great suggestion 😊
I hate how good SwiftKey’s autocorrect is. I’m definitely on the hunt for a good alternative in this thread.
I’ve been using the OpenBoard fork since it got recommended in this thread and it’s been good enough for me to disable SwiftKey (not delete yet though, I’m not ready to fully commit to deleting that accrued personal dictionary). I recommend checking it out!
##Keyboards
Florisboard is back!
Openboard is sadly outdated, but there was some steady updated fork
Simple keyboard (NOT the simple tools), but it doesn’t have many fucntions, but works just great and looks on a million $
##Notes
Many good options, but i would like to see an gpg encrypted notes with local storage
Honorable mentions: logseq, simple notes
Maps
Gmaps WV (donate to divest, plz), organic maps
##Music
Everything that works with jellyfin, bauh was good, but not updated in a while
Notes: Joplin
Maps: OSMand, Organic Maps, StreetComplete, Vespucci, EveryDoor
Music: VLC
Keyboard: FlorisBoard
Music Player: InnerTune
Is there a way to get autocorrect on Florisboard?
- Openboard
- Quillnote
- Organic Maps
- ViMusic - music streaming but after 1st listen songs are cached for offline play.
Edit: Now that I think about it, I use session for taking notes and “syncing” them with my PC. I guess any messaging app with a desktop client would work.
RiMusic is a fork with updates
I’m extremely picky about Notes apps. I’ve tested so many Open source as well as closed source apps. I’ll be interested in what others are using, but the features I want are:
- Cross platform (Android, Linux, and MacOS)
- Universal format - markdown is a bonus
- Good task handling with checklist support
So what I’ve settled with is Obsidian (not open source) due to its simplicity of reading and writing to a folder hierarchy of plain text files. But since it sucks at task and checklists, I’ve been using Quillpad. It only syncs with Nextcloud at the moment, but there is promise of plain text file and bring-your-own-sync-solution on the roadmap.
Notesnook is a nice app, but since it’s all E2EE, there is no plain text without exporting your notes manually. Shame too because it handles tasks and checklists very nicely.
Honorable mention: Acreom it’s not open source yet, but that is on the roadmap. It is local first and plain text files on desktop OSes…but not on Android, meaning of you want to sync between your desktop and mobile you have to use their cloud. And I don’t want to do that.
Joplin gets mentioned constantly. But it adds weird metadata to every text file and changes the titles of the files to some garbled hexadecimal string, which makes it impossible to know what you’re looking at at the file level. And the task management/checklists is awful. Android app is bad too. I’m sure I’ll get hate for hating on the FOSS golden child, but that’s ok. This is simply my opinion. Like I said I’m very picky.
I haven’t used it, but I’ve heard logseq is pretty much FOSS obsidian.
@[email protected] it is really hard to find the perfect Notes app. I’ve tried a bunch and settled on Quillpad, synced with Nextcloud.
thoughts on markor? also, what do you mean acreom plans open source? what license?
I keep trying Markor. UI is rough though. And not a fan of the checklist and task management within the app. I do like that it’s just simple text files for sure. But not a very elegant solution.
Not sure what license Acreom is going to open source if under. But it’s on their Roadmap
Maps: Organic Maps
Notes: Note calendar. Type in notes for a specific day. A beautifully simple app.
What’s the best alternative to Gboard?
I’ve gotten use to swiping to type, and the English (Australia) (PC) QWERTY layout with the number row at the top, and hold-press numbers are the equivalent QWERTY keyboard symbols.
Am finding it hard to replace.
- Keyboard: OpenBoard (works great, support anonymous mode, my layout, emojis, paste, move cursor using finger over space button, longer deletes using finger over backspace)
- Music Player: Odyssey (I don’t rely on ID3 tags but directory structure instead - there is too little of those players who use it)
- Music Player: ViMusic (FOSS interface to Youtube Music)
- Music Player: RadioDroid (for online radio stations)
noteless . esp for collecting links/bookmarks
Hopefully I’m not too late. This is the first of your posts that I see.
It is always a great idea to list awesome opensource apps. And most importantly keep the list up to date.
This should not be a one person task and keeping a megathread up to date and readable isn’t that great.
There are “awesome lists”. Anyone can create an awesome list. It is a curated list of apps or services, often maintained on github for easier collaboration.
Following are two of those
https://github.com/binaryshrey/Awesome-Android-Open-Source-Projects
https://github.com/LinuxCafeFederation/awesome-android
Privacyguides should always get a mention when talking about recommendations since they curate their list and state why they choose this or that app and service. Its primary target is privacy but opensource is important for that as well https://www.privacyguides.org/
In short, if you are serious about it, create a repo somewhere and begin writing and listing. Or, contribute to other lists.
Privacyguides should always get a mention when talking about recommendations
I disagree - privacy guides isn’t a software freedom organization and the privacy community is not the free software community (although there is significant overlap). Conflating the two harms both.
Their list is very well curated.
With what statement of them would you disagree? They may be a little bit too strict with security but they usually educate and for that it’s a good resource
I build this to see opinions from all Lemmys who want contribute. My goal is catch all opinions from these threads and built a reliable megathread with Lemmys opinions. Something like on final, to people see on overall, what we think as a community about the best FOSS apps.
I know are a lot of lists on the internet with good apps ideas, but im more focus with all Lemmys opinions, the opinions off user-use. This is my main goal. Built something reliable from Lemmy communities.
EDIT: I appreciate if you want contribute with your apps you are using and you like it, on respectively threads (:
EDIT 2: I want to keep the megathread update. I see your comment has been upvote and sometimes I think if this is a relly be a good idea (?) tbh. I want will update megathread atleast 3 times per year when it is final, and discussing with people some aspects to update or change.
I’ve enjoyed anysoft and floris keyboards but I want something open source with gif support. Might go back to swiftkey just because of it.
I’m physically addicted to SwiftKey and it’s still very good, but, it is owned by Microsoft now in case that influences anyone’s decisions here.
Fcitx5 supports CJK