Kii Keyboard - OMG! Watch out Swype & SwiftKey Flow!

[Methos1979]

There's a new sheriff in keyboard town and his name is Kii! I stumbled upon this program (thanks, Tom!) in a discussion about which was better - Swype or SwiftKey Flow. I had been a dedicated Swype user as it came pre-installed on my RAZR MAXX HD but then signed up for the SwiftKey Flow beta trial and had been using that for almost a month. I was getting ready to go back to Swype to get a better feel for which of two I like better when I stumbled on the thread here and a poster said he had recently found Kii, a new program in beta, and it was great. He was not kidding!

Kii has everything that both Swype and SwiftKey Flow have plus more. Word prediction, gestures, and it works in all types of fields (SKF doesn't work in certain types of fields). But the best thing is that you can customize it heavily. You can move the keyboard from one side to the other (called padding) which is great for people that swipe type with just their thumb. You can fully customize the keyboard's size, colors, spacing, and a whole lot more. You can use almost all aftermarket keyboard themes and skins. It seems to be a winner and it's still just in beta. As a beta program all the 'premium' features are turned on right now for free.

I thought this program deserved it's own thread to let others know about it and as a place to discuss the program and the things you find you can or can't do as well as any problems/solutions you find. I've only been using this program for a day and I can see myself going back to Swype of SKF any time soon. Check it out.

 

[mystik1]

I will check it out. So far, I like Perfect Keyboard best out of all I have tried.

 

[valorian]

Thanks for posting this. I'll give this a try.

 

[LS1BadBird]

I didn't notice my favorite customization in your list, the ability to load custom fonts. I love that I don't have to look at bland, generic letters anymore.

Been using it for about a month and have zero complaints.

 

[mystik1]

I really like the app. I sent in a suggestion though, which prevents me from switching to it. I will update this thread on what I hear back. It says a lot about a product by how responsive the developer is to feedback and new features.

 

[Methos1979]

I didn't notice my favorite customization in your list, the ability to load custom fonts. I love that I don't have to look at bland, generic letters anymore.

Been using it for about a month and have zero complaints.

Nice! Yes, I didn't mention everything you can do to customize your keyboard mostly because I have not experimented with everything yet. I use a different color font but have not experiment with different font-types yet.

One thing I have not been able to do is change the color of the alternative character color. I got it to go once after I tried a theme and then got rid of it I suddenly had the alternative characters color but then I changed to a different stock keyboard and since then I have not been able to get it back. The alternative characters are very small so without adding some color to them they are very hard to see.

Anyone else have this problem or find a solution?

 

[LS1BadBird]

No, but I've noticed this too. In addition to being small, as you can see in the example above they seem really high on the keys and have a tendency to bleed into the background. Not a huge deal but especially if you keep your brightness down, it can be a pain.

 

[Methos1979]

I emailed the Dev about the issue. I'll post of he responds.

 

[tcat007]

You can pretty much create any look (using or altering themes from Play), to make as readable as you need. A couple I've tried, using the top "Storm" version, very happy with it. The text shortcuts (in dictionary) work well (like set-up "sig" for a complete signature).

Changing alt text works well for me.

 

[LS1BadBird]

Thanks for the tip! The storm theme matches the character color to the key color.

 

[Methos1979]

I tried a couple more skins and it's when using them that I'm able to get the alternate text color to actually work! I downloaded three free skins from HD and didn't really like any of them. I tried Storm, Rapid, and Mav-Rix and didn't like any enough to use. I liked the look of Chiclet a lot as I prefer lighter colored boards. It's a pay one but only $.99 so I sprung for it and it's pretty good. I'm playing with colors right now.

I've also got my key sizing and placement down to where it's small enough for thumb-only swiping. I'll post a couple screen captures shortly with the colors I'm testing but here's the specs on the spacing and positioning I'm using:

(All entries of for Portrait mode only)

Key size: 125%
Bottom spacing: 50%
Key spacing: 50%
Key row spacing: 50%
Keyboard left side padding:8%
Keyboard right side padding: 16%

I'm sure these numbers will change but this seems to put the board in a perfect place for my left thumb. I also opted for the dedicated row of numbers and arrows.

 

[Methos1979]

Here's one capture. It was hard to get it quick enough before the trace faded!

It's funny but now that I can see all the little alternate characters on the blown up PC screen I'm finding all kinds of things I didn't even know were available!

 

[tcat007]

Nice look. How'd you get the delete key off the querty row?

Also, anyone get the emoji (happy faces) in the 123 key menu working? THey just add a space when I try.

 

[Methos1979]

I'm not sure what you mean the delete key off the QWERTY row? You mean the backspace key? It's in the same position as the other boards posted above. I didn't do anything to move it.

As for the emoji from the 123 - same with me. I'm thinking maybe you need to have an aftermarket emoji app installed, which I do not. But you can get a bunch of basic emoji faces from long pressing the return key on the opposite side. I've never been much of an emoji user but maybe I'll download a free app to see if that works with the 123 key.

Also, the long press of the period key brings up a whole bunch of punctuation marks in a little menu. I don't find this useful because the ones I need most are too far off to the right to be helpful for me so I just use the individual long press versions on the letters above. But the real problem is that I can't long press the period for the comma!

Hey! I just went back over to my phone and had an update message from Kii saying that I needed to download an emoji plugin to use that button. I did so (it led me straight to Hancent Emoji Plugin) and now, as expected, it works great.

Does anyone use the Dynamic floating preview? I had turned it off as I found it distracting but I'm going to turn it back on and see how I like it.

 

[tcat007]

Odd. If you look at my keyboards above the delete key is on the 2nd row. I get nothing long pressing the return key. I get a question mark long pressing the period. Must be different phones do different things. I have the handcent plug in, no update, doesn't work.

 

[Methos1979]

The keyboards you posted in this thread are landscape. Maybe that's the difference? But I see what you mean. Not sure about the other issues.

I've also disabled the dynamic floating preview as it did not help at all.

 

[chanchan05]

Gesture input doesn't work on my phone for some reason. Sticking to Swype.

 

[Rocco2012]

I have been using this for a few days and it is to me perfect. Even got a couple of my friends to use it and they agree.
I love the gesture keyboard on the Nexus 4. With the ICS theme you can't even tell the difference. I find this keyboard more responsive then the stock one.

One thing, does any one know how to get rid of the notification when using the keyboard? That's the only thing that somewhat bugs me.

Thanks.

 

[ALangford]

Downloaded Kii keyboard. Seems pretty cool. Lots of customizable options too. However my biggest reason was due to use of emoji. I see they're pre-installed with ios6 emoji, however when I try and input these in a message there is just a blank space, no matter how many emoji's I attempt to add. Any help here folks?

 

[Methos1979]

Gesture input doesn't work on my phone for some reason. Sticking to Swype.

If you enable gesture control you cannot use gesture typing. It also says when enabling gesture typing that some devices are not supported. Too bad as being able to have some gestures for doing certain things would be cool but I can see where it would be a problem programming I guess.

 

[Methos1979]

Downloaded Kii keyboard. Seems pretty cool. Lots of customizable options too. However my biggest reason was due to use of emoji. I see they're pre-installed with ios6 emoji, however when I try and input these in a message there is just a blank space, no matter how many emoji's I attempt to add. Any help here folks?

Mine was not pre-installed with the program. When I tried to use it I too just got the blank space. But then I got a notification from Kii in the notification bar that I needed to download an emoji app for it to work. I followed their link and it took me to Handcent emoji app, installed, and now it works fine.

 

[Methos1979]

I have been using this for a few days and it is to me perfect. Even got a couple of my friends to use it and they agree.
I love the gesture keyboard on the Nexus 4. With the ICS theme you can't even tell the difference. I find this keyboard more responsive then the stock one.

One thing, does any one know how to get rid of the notification when using the keyboard? That's the only thing that somewhat bugs me.

Thanks.

I never even noticed this since it's only there on my phone when I'm actually typing then it goes away. I did not see a way to shut it off in the program settings.

 

[tcat007]

My examples are Portrait, not Landscape (unless there's a setting for this?). Tried several and they all have the wider qwerty row. Switching to "US-PC" it actually adds 2 more symbols to that row.

Not sure what you're talking about with notifications. I've never seen one.

I also can not get emotions to work (not that I care :smokingsomb. Using my PC right now.

 

[Methos1979]

Wow, you must have a very wide phone even in portrait mode! A little keyboard icon pops up in the notification bar on my phone when the keyboard is active. I guess there is just differences between phone types right now. Emoticons work well on mine! 🐞🐜🐥🐋🐃🐪🐆🐖🌿🌰

Okay now I'm noticing that only certain ones are working!

 

[tcat007]

Must be the difference in phone and "tablet", although my Nexus 7 isn't really in tablet mode.