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.
Does anyone know of an alternative to Hacker’s Keyboard? It hasn’t been updated for about 5 years and I’m worried it will stop working on newer versions of Android.
Maybe: unexpected keyboard
Had a look at it, seems to lack dedicated modifier and cursor keys. Looking specifically for a PC-style keyboard.
Keyboard: FlorisBoard
Music Player: InnerTune
Is there a way to get autocorrect on Florisboard?
Waiting. They’re programming the thing.
oh? I can wait, that’s not an issue. I didn’t find any forum threads that indicated that was in the works.
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.
Wildcard for keyboard: ThumbKey
This has been pretty great, although unique.
I’ve been using Minuum for years despite it being long abandoned by its closed source devs. Fans of this very unique keyboard would love to have an OSS alternative!
@Sir_Kevin @dez there’s dozens of us!
##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Openboard is sadly outdated, but there was some steady updated fork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
According to fdroid, florisboard is in beta, but hasn’t been updated since june, 2022. Is it still active?
Fcitx5 supports CJK
- Music player: “dialog music player” for filemanagers, Vanilla music if you want auto-play, anrimians player is nice too (github)
- maps: nothing beats OSMAnd
- Notes: personally markor, but if you want cross platform sync Standard Notes may be nice
- Keyboard: Florisboard forever, so stable and customizable. I cant like without the internal clipboard and quick deletion, and the editing buttons
I’m using “Unexpected Keyboard” right now. I like that it’s different in that I dont have to long press a key in order to input punctuation. It’s a swipe from the center of a key to a corner and I think it’s that little bit faster. :)
Also doesn’t have auto-correct like other FOSS keyboards.
Joplin
I sync it with onedrive basically for free between my phone, laptop and computer. It’s wysiwyg editor means it was basically a drop in replacement for EverNote for me, but open source and without the costs.
I quite like unexpected keyboard and I don’t do much note-taking but when I do I just type it in acode and a save it as a .md.
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.
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.
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 do not believe privacy guides is a friend to the free software movement. I have criticized them (and adjacent projects in the privacy space) for this in the past, but I’ll just try to summarize briefly why I believe so currently.
Their criteria prioritizes security over freedom and allows for recommending proprietary software if it has been sufficiently audited. They recommend at least two proprietary applications (a password manager and an email client) at the moment but I’m sure they’ve recommended others before.
They have made it part of their mission to debunk the misconception that free software is more secure than proprietary software. While this is indeed a common misconception, it is always associated with another misconception - that the purpose of the free software movement is to provide security and privacy. The free software movement has never promised security, only freedom. This message is unfortunately a casualty of the conflation of the free software and privacy communities.
They are complicit in spreading security FUD about F-Droid. Because it’s common to conflate the free software movement and the privacy community in so many “FOSS” or “open source” spaces, this means any time Android or F-Droid is even mentioned you immediately get hordes of people recommending Obtainium or posting that well-known FUD article, with only someone like me even willing to push back.
They praise the security of proprietary operating systems. In the free software movement, we recognize that security features such as secure or verified boot are useful if the user holds the keys, if not then they are a form of control over the user. For proprietary operating systems, “security” often means you cannot change the system to do something you want, or to stop it from doing something you don’t want. In other words, in the proprietary software world, the “threat model” includes the user themselves.
To their credit, I do not believe they are evil, malicious, corrupt, sold-out, or even wrong a lot of the time. I just don’t think they’re aligned with this particular movement. In essence my complaint is that they prioritize security over freedom, to the degree they even mention freedom at all (it gets a brief mention in their GNU/Linux recommendation list I think) they make sure to remind us that proprietary software can be as good or better.
In a wider view, the fact that people conflate these two communities isn’t really privacy guides’ fault, so I can’t really blame them alone for it.
Thank you for your comment.
Those recommendations are strange and I can not comprehend their decision to include them. Most importantly, the email client is recommended because there is nothing else which should just be no recommendation at all. Recommending one password is nuts. I haven’t been on their site for a while. There must’ve been a paradigm shift. Such recommendations wouldn’t have been there one or two years ago thank you for clarifying that.
Imo, privacyguides used to be a good source because they gave a reason why something is listed. The why is ver important to a lot of readers, especially newcomers.
In the future, hopefully, devs will publish mostly reproducible builds which makes any concerns invalid https://f-droid.org/2023/01/15/towards-a-reproducible-fdroid.html
Auxio is excellent and use Material design.
Notes: Joplin
Maps: OSMand, Organic Maps, StreetComplete, Vespucci, EveryDoor
Music: VLC
