Physical keyboard layouts were optimized for typing with ten fingers. Most virtual keyboards just copy the look of those physical layouts — even though the writing experience is completely different, since on a screen we're really only using one or two thumbs. On top of that, most of these keyboards focus on how the keyboard looks, and pay far less attention to how it sounds and feels.

With Honeyboard, I wanted to explore what it means to redesign a keyboard specifically for screens, and build the best possible writing experience around that. I focused on the essential core features that define what a virtual keyboard actually is:

• Write in your native script. Honeyboard ships with 122 languages and 295 layouts.
• A coherent experience for your senses. Organizational structure, visual, haptic, and auditory feedback all work together to make typing genuinely feel satisfying.
• Adapts to any device. Phone, foldable, or tablet — it looks and works perfectly on all of them, so it feels like a native part of your system.
• Fully local. It runs entirely on-device, with no special permissions required.
• Public domain. The code is contributed to the public domain, with a modular, clear structure, thorough tests, and documentation — so it's easy to contribute to or adapt yourself.

This isn't just another keyboard. It's a vision of what digital typing could look like in the future — and it already works today.

There's still some polishing and optimization to do, especially on the sound design, the layout sources, and the layouting algorithm, but none of that gets in the way of everyday use.

I'd love to hear what you think.

can we have a release apk or on F Droid? would love to try it!

just added it to my repo: https://codeberg.org/propagandalf/HoneyBoard/releases/tag/v0.1.0

Physical keyboards were optimized to slow down typing because typing too fast would jam the machines.

I'm fascinated to try it. I've tried some other non traditional keyboards over the years. Unfortunately I get a cryptic "Failed to install" message with the apk. Might be due to this being an old phone. I will try and remember to come back to this after I get a new one. Planning to upgrade anyways this week.

yes its android 14 upwards only unfortunately :/

thanks!

well thats true for the very old ones but I had regular pc keyboards in mind when I wrote this ^^

indeed it is. I used claude code extensively for the implementation but the logic, the design choices and the vision are my contribution. This is what I enjoy doing and what I'm confident about.

may I ask in what way this is a problem for you? is the code quality insufficent or the formulations unclear/repetitive/...? or is it just a personal dislike towards llm generated code? I can understand both, just trying to understand if there is something technical or just a personal preference.

The Qwerty keyboard layout was a result of typewriters being jammed. Qwerty moved commonly pressed keys farther away.

Ok, here's to better luck when I get my new phone

I can't quite understand how tob switch the language to a secondary, and the secondary language is gone from the full list of keyboards after switching to HoneyBoard.

Capitalisation by upwards swipebis a nice featiure, would be cool to also have punctuation available with swipes. Also, I keep missing buttons but that's lack of practice, the idea looks great

good idea, does it support pinyin?

Interesting, could be a move away from typewise, do you support their gestures? Left to delete and up for capitalised.

no, CJK languages are not supported yet

yes, currently you can swipe up to capitalize, swipe backspace left to delete a word and swipe the space key to move the pointer. in the future i could imagine a generic gesture system where you can swipe a key in all directions and assign actions to each direction.