I want to turn it off entirely, but the “smart” hitboxes for the digital keyboard are also so imprecise that I rely on autocorrect to accommodate my fat fingers.

  • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Gboard is especially bad at this. If a word could in any conceivable way be capitalized, it will capitalize it.

    • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      “Autocorrect,” for instance.

      I’m using the Samsung one. I’ve tried a couple FOSS keyboards, but I just can’t get used to them. They always make it super hard to find the special characters or non-English letters like ñ, which is a PITA since half my family speaks Spanish.

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        I’m using OpenBoard. I have many complaints, but finding ñ is not one of them.

      • dingus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I can’t stand the Samsung one because it doesn’t let me swear. I’m an adult, damnit. I want to be able to say what I want without my phone policing me like a child. So I use Gboard instead.

        • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          1 year ago

          Hmmm I don’t seem to be having this problem, but I remember it happening at one time. I think I’ve manually added all the fucks and shits by now.

          • dingus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s the thing, I can’t even manually add them. I searched all over the web, but wasn’t able to find a solution. I think in older versions of the Samsung keyboard, you were able to do this. But newer phones or newer versions of the keyboard or something removed this feature. It’s dumb.

            • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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              1 year ago

              This is my second Samsung phone, so maybe my settings carried over? I agree that it’s dumb though. Samsung just seems to get worse over time.

          • Aatube@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Also doesn’t suggest “assassinate” and all of its forms except “assassin(s)”

      • Octopus1348@lemy.lol
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        1 year ago

        I like Gboard because of its Hungarian layout, I have all the special letters like é and ö at my fingertips and I don’t have to long-press to type them.

        I once out of curiosity checked the Spanish layout, it had ñ there.

        • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          1 year ago

          Yes, the keyboard I use has the Spanish characters in the layout as well. In fact, it would probably make more sense just to use it if I could get used to the different layout.

    • loobkoob@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      My keyboard (Swiftkey) gets very excited about the possibilities when I start to hyphenate words to create compounds. It accepts that they exist, but it starts trying to throw all sorts of random suggestions in for what the second word could be (and it rarely gets the right word).

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When you put it like that, it sounds very endearing 😄

        How are you liking it otherwise? I’m looking for something that’s neither Gboard nor the Samsung one…

    • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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      1 year ago

      When is it correct to use compound words in english? In Swedish you can do compound words for anything at will. In English “flagpole” is its own word but “dirt farmer” isn’t.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          True there is no consistent rule, but generally the more a phrase is used, the more often it becomes a compound word

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Welp! Better go convince some more people to become destitute agricultural workers so that the dictionary is less confusing to us Scandinavians!

      • Ross_audio@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        All it is is whether a compound word is common enough.

        It starts in speech when the words are repeated next to each other often enough they start being thought of as one word. But can’t be shortened.

        If, in context, every time we said farmer we ended up saying dirt farmer. It would become compound. But in reality we’d just end up saying “farmer” when the context makes it clear. You’ll see this in writing about farming all the time, initially stating the type of farmer then just saying farmer.

        Flag pole started out separately, but in some conversations it would become one object. Every time we talked about the flag pole it would be one word, flagpole. But saying just “pole” would be ambiguous. There are other poles around.

        It trends towards shortness, if context allows us to drop a word altogether we will, if it doesn’t it gets compounded abbreviated.

        No formal rule for this at all, but that’s the way it happens. People try to say things more efficiently without confusing meaning.

    • Pechente@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Even more baffling, lots of keyboards don’t support this for German that has a bunch of compound words. Swiftkey (at least in the past) even split up compound words is German, thereby messing up correct grammar and replacing it with wrong grammar. It was infuriating.

  • girl@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Every few months I have to reset my dictionary. My phone will eventually decide that because I mostly use the words “hope” and “will” at the beginning of sentences, the correct spelling must be capitalized. Drives me nuts

      • breakingcups@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s more that your phone has one accidentally registered you typing it capitalized and remembered it as a “name”, deleting that suggestion allows it to reverts to the non-capitalized version.

        • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          1 year ago

          This is just one of many examples. If it’s remembering a common English word like “expanse” as a name, then that’s crappy design. If you check my other comments in this thread, you will find more examples of autocorrect fucking up.

          Either way, it fits here. It’s definitely infuriating when trying to express yourself in text, and perfectly normal words keep changing. And it’s gotten noticeably worse, the “smarter” these apps try to be. Autocorrect on my Motorola Droid from a decade ago worked much better than the one on the Samsung phone I’m using now, because it didn’t try to do the thinking part for me.

    • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      I really wish that I could use it. I try to use open source as much as I can, but the way it uses backspace to undo autocorrect is a big problem for me.

      I should look into some other FOSS keyboards, though.

    • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      I have a feeling mine did the same at one time. “The Expanse” was the topic of discussion in a discord server I’m in for a while, and I’m sure at that point I was forced to add the capitalized version so my phone would allow it. Instead of creating a separate entry so that both the capitalized and lower-case versions would be permitted, it must have “learned” that the word should always be capitalized, which is a mind-numbingly ineffectual way to do things.

      I’ve now added “expanse” to the dictionary, so let’s see: You should watch “The Expanse.”

      It works now, both ways! I know there are other perfectly normal words in keeps insisting are wrong though, and I’ll only be able to fix them in the moment when I’m trying to express myself quickly. Oh, it used to capitalize “express” every time too because I once texted a friend from inside an Express store. Absolutely bonkers.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Don’t even worry about it. It’s only two or three taps to close the dialog box ad confirm that you wanted to close the dialog box. And it never happens more than once per word, I think.

    • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      I think you’re missing the infuriating part. I deliberately expanded the dialog box to demonstrate that lower-case “expanse” did not exist in the dictionary. The dictionary had “learned” that “expanse” is solely a proper noun. That’s the mildly infuriating part.

  • infeeeee@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Last time I used autocorrect or whatever they call it nowadays was on a Siemens or SonyEricsson phone, and it was called T9.

    On modern big screen phones I can type easily with my average size male thumbs. Is it a common problem nowadays, or is it just lazyness or it’s just quicker to type this way? On early 3-4" smartphones I can understand, but on today’s 6-7" screens?

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Especially with swipe typing - the only times I find I’m typing in a whole word is if swipe typing repeatedly doesn’t get it (eg have when I’m trying to type gave), or when I’m typing a word that isn’t in the dictionary. That means the vast majority of the time autocorrect would kick in it would be unwelcome anyway

    • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but the hit boxes on every keyboard I’ve ever tried on this device have been absolute dogshit. In that previous sentence, I needed many corrections, and I fought with autocorrect deciding “tried” should be “tries.” My post is just one of many examples of autocorrect being wrong, but typing without autocorrect is worse.

      I don’t know what to tell you. If anything, these keyboards have gotten worse for me, not better. The tinfoil hat part of me thinks I’m actually hitting the right spots, but the keyboard is trying to predict which letters I’ll type next.

      There it was again – changing “but” to “buy .” It’s baffling to me how this is somehow much worse than the keyboard on my Motorola Droid from like 10 years ago.