Microsoft SwiftKey Android Support Forums

Hi guys,

How to submit a feature request

If you've had a really good idea and want SwiftKey to hear all about it, the best way to do that is to submit it via the 'Feature Request' form here:

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

We look forward to reading all your requests and improvements.

The best way to post a question

Salve,
vorrei capire come memorizzare termini. In pratica la tastiera swiftkey non memorizza il termine <po'>, che in italiano è il troncamento di poco ed è un termine molto utilizzato. Nella lingua italiana <po> non esiste. Esiste <Po> maiscolo, cioè il fiume Po.
E' un problema che posso risolvere in autonomia?
Grazie

First, I will clarify some things for those who may not know and for those who might assume that I am confusing spell-checker with keyboard input prediction.

Then I will:

Bring back a problem that has been called for attention many times and explain why it happens;

Explain why I think it matters and why previous suggested workarounds are sub-optimal;

Discuss Google’s (Gboard) chosen workaround;

Give my suggestion to fix the problem.

Definitions

Input prediction (IP) (Auto-complete and auto-correction) is a feature whose main purpose in software keyboards is to allow the user to type faster. The keyboard suggests words before you type them entirely and correct words where there are typos. By auto-correcting, the keyboard allows the user to type without painstaking care and precision, which allows for faster typing.

Spell-checking (SC) is (usually) a feature of word processors or system-wide input fields (MS Word, Android, and Google Chrome for desktop, each has its own spell-checker independent from software keyboards or any input method). Its main purpose is to alert and correct the user about the orthography of a given language.

The problem

People who use simultaneous multi-language input prediction – a feature present on SwiftKey (and Gboard also) – start seeing a red underling in all words of one of the languages.

The reason is that, while SwiftKey’s input prediction does have support for multiple languages simultaneously, the android’s system-wide spell-checker active in the user’s phone (usually AOSP’s or Google’s spell-checker) does not have.

Previous suggestions

Here it has been suggested that the user should disable the spell checker:

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002878149-Red-underline-Not-a-SK-problem-

Notably, this is also the approach used by Gboard (more on that latter), but I think this is far from the ideal because it forces the user to resort to input prediction (IP) as a form of spell-checking (SC). This is a problem because, as I said in the beginning, input-prediction is a feature focused on fast typing (as it should be) and not on orthography. To illustrate, imagine how a user uses IP as SC:

The user types the word and hopes that the keyboard will correct it automatically if it’s wrong. Except that, even when typing correctly, sometimes the first prediction (the middle one in SwiftKey) is not the desired one. And other times the prediction dictionary doesn’t have the desired word. For those reasons, the exact typed word is always shown as an option, typos and all (as it should be), and the keyboard memorizes anything the user decides to input (as it should be) either by typing space and accepting the middle prediction, or by selecting the desired word in the list.

The result is that the IP learns a lot of slangs, acronyms and jargon (as is should be), but also learns misspelled words. And the user has no way of knowing if the thing he/her has typed didn’t appear as the first (middle) prediction because it was wrong or because the neural network crystal ball simply got it wrong or because the word doesn’t exist in the IP dictionary. Also, sometimes the misspelling is so different from the intended word that the latter doesn’t appear in the prediction list, and sometimes the misspelling is even presented as the first (middle) prediction.

The clear solution to that in my opinion is to have a separate mechanism for checking orthography, the spell-checker, which has to support simultaneously multi-language input as well (chrome desktop browser has that). This is a second independent layer that runs after input prediction, and is not affected by the IP dictionary. And when the user decides to tap a word and include it in the SC dictionary it is a conscious deliberate decision.

How does Gboard deal with that

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002630445-Changing-the-language-doesn-t-change-the-system-spell-checker

Here it has been said that SwiftKey cannot control the spellchecker, and that Gboard doesn’t break in the same way because it has “advanced system privileges that SwiftKey cannot access”. I’m not an android programmer, but from the tests I have done, it seems to me that Gboard has the exact same level of system access that SwiftKey has with respect to spell-checking:

If my selected system-wide spell-checker is the AOSP one, it behaves in the exact same way with Gboard as it does with SwiftKey. The thing that Gboard does different is that, along with the keyboard, the app installs a spell-checking service as well. I’m using LineageOS, which doesn’t come with Gboard or Google’s spell-checker, only the AOSP ones. And when I install Gboard, Google’s SC appears as an option.

Now, Google’s solution is far from the best in my opinion. For what I tested, the ‘Google spell-checker’ (installed by Gboard) simply disables itself if it detects that Gboard is being used and uses only the system’s language when it detects other 3rd party keyboards (exactly like the AOSP one). And I already explained my problems with both solutions.

My suggestion

Simply put together a simple spell-checker with simultaneous multi-language support and ship it within the SwiftKey app. I think this would be simple to do, just copy the default dictionaries of the SwiftKey IP as a starting point, but it would not have to deal with predictions and other complex features that a software keyboard has to deal with. Again, copy the dictionaries, any word learned by the IP should not be automatically learned by the SC.

The simplest implementation would be to have one hash table for each language. If the user decides to use two languages simultaneously, a new empty language-agnostic hash table is created. That way, when the user includes a new word to de dictionary, it is included in the language-agnostic one to avoid guessing the language of the word. Then, spell-checking a word is simply to query the word on 3 hash tables.

Why am I suggesting this to you?

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360038666231-How-to-Active-Spell-Checker-in-SwiftKey

Here it has been said that SC “was never a feature of SwiftKey itself”, and that it’s an Android problem.

Indeed, if only AOSP’s SC did support multiple languages simultaneously, this problem would be solved. But I use and prefer SwiftKey; AOSP’s keyboard still doesn’t have support for simultaneous multi-language input, suggesting that this support is also not in the horizon for AOSP spell-checker; and it’s more probable that Google’s engineers will fix this only in Google’s SC, in a way that works exclusively with Gboard (as it’s the case with the ‘auto-disable SC’ workaround).

And ultimately this is a problem that (to me at least) seems extremely simple to solve and is hurting your product.

Here are some treads complaining of SC-related problems that, while not necessarily being all related to multi-language support, could benefit from a simple Spell Checker shipped inside the SwiftKey app.

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002905745-Multilingual-keyboard-underlines-all-English-as-incorrect-Spell-Checker-

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360057381832-Red-underline

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360041911952-Swiftkey-red-underline-is-gone-

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360054924171-Red-line-under-text

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115004508429--Duplicate-Android-Showing-red-underlines-for-all-words-in-second-language

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360071921211-Swiftkey-underline-not-showing

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000617369-Reduced-English-suggestions-for-incorrect-spellings

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360043539472-Red-line-under-spelling-errors-with-SwiftKey-

https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000528649-Spell-Check-with-SwiftKey-has-Red-underlined-text

P.S.:

I’m conscious that I might be wrong about a number of things: There could be another workaround that solves the problem in a satisfactory way; There could be a barrier to install system-wide spell-checkers on android; Maybe spell-checking is harder than I think, even without grammar-checking or prediction; etc.

In that case it would be nice if someone could explain the situation in a more in-depth way.

It would be quite useful, if there were a way to search for emojis, when the Emoji button has been pressed.

It should be kind of like how Gboard does it, where you switch to Emoji mode and then you can search (eg. you type "cat" and see the cat emoji 🐈).

This is a feature request for the SwitfKey Android keyboard; I cannot use Swiftmoji, as it is english only and not available in Switzerland.

Keyboard would be much more usable if you could make the font on keyboard bigger without making the buttons bigger. Your button fonts could be 50% bigger without increasing button size and they would be much easier to read. You are wasting a bunch of space on your keyboard that is nearly useless. Just add a setting for font size to change the size of the characters without changing button size.

I come from being an iOS user and recently bought an android phone a OnePlus6T. I love everything about it, however my thumbs have been really hurting from staying in a downwards position. Is there a way of inserting some space bellow the keyboard?

I know the screenshot is gboard but its the same case for swift key.

Many Users are not able to efficiently use SwiftKey as tap-to-type due to the errors that occur when spaces are inserted or deleted after certain characters.

SwiftKey AI will add spaces even when settings for all options are turned off.

Certain characters require double spaces to be spaced, and 'period' character will have spaces inserted directly after. The frequency of key press affects the displayed result - and it is different each time.

Data fields without the correct meta-tag will result in SwiftKey behaving differently - cut and paste - may or may not add spaces after. URL may or may not add spaces.

Pressing 'period' 20 times at a rate of 1 per second will yield a different result to a rate of 3 per second.

The behavior can be seen when typing an ellipses "..." or open and closed bracket "[ ] " or open and closed braces "{}"
Textbox tags on sites with it enabled in the textbox will mean that the "@" character will cancel unwanted behavior, and also "#" hash tags.

The replication of the issue is most apparent for continuous key-press of the period key - as stated above - and shows a lack of set behavior for AI, due to the inconsistencies. Time between key-press for a single character "period" should not yield different results.

Just create a toggle to disable insertion or deletion of spaces after characters or words.

This has been an issue for years now, and has constantly been ignored.
My forum post from yesterday has been ignored and deleted. I cannot find any reference to a post or support ticket posted yesterday.

Why is Swiftkey changing a word in ALL CAPITALS to a first letter Capitalisation. It never used to do this, and I can't find anything in settings. Oh why was this once wonderful app sold to Microsoft so they could screw it up.

To remove incorrectly learned suggested words in English input mode, such as misspellings, long pressing the suggestion from the prediction bar correctly gives the option to remove that word.

However, when in Japanese input mode, long pressing a suggestion simply inputs the text of that suggestion.

Is there any way to individually remove incorrect suggestions in Japanese input mode?

typing web addresses into the address bar of the browser always inserts an auto space after hitting the dot key. Thus I always have to correct by using backspace and type again. 

Same problem with other situations, where I do not automatically need an auto space after the dot, e. g., when typing mail addresses. 

there a way ariund it and have a setting option, allowing to deactivate auto spaces after a dot? 

This is gone on long enough. I correctly type No, and swiftkey will either correct this to Jo or KO. 

I have long-pressed Jo and asked it to never predict it again.

Checked data.swiftkey.com and it is NOT there. 

Have English, Spanish and Portuguese as my languages and in all three of them "no" is an extremely common word, and "Jo" means absolutely jack shit. I'm getting sick of this. Swiftkey didn't use to be this stupid before the Microsoft purchase. 

Samsung S10e

Version 7.8.5.6

Android 11, Samsung One UI 3.1

日本語で文章入力する際に、単語と単語の間や単語と助詞の間にスペースが入る。

英文では単語の後にスペースを入れることが必要ですが、日本語の時にはこの機能は不要です。

この機能の削除をお願いします。

--

When entering sentences in Japanese, there are spaces between words and between words and particles. In English, it is necessary to put a space after the word, but in Japanese, this function is not necessary. Please remove this function.

Soy una persona de la tercera edad y el tamaño de las letras y símbolos que aparecen en los teclados son muy pequeñas.
Mi pregunta es:
Como puedo aumentar el tamaño de las letras y símbolos del teclado?
Muchas gracias y si bendiciones. Ismael.

When I open the Google keep app I get a SwiftKey keyboard.

How can I close this keyboard? Only people using Samsung S5E need post, as every suggestion fails, and I'm hoping this might be peculiar to the S5e 

Has anyone had an issue of the left prediction bar showing a correctly spelled word, but with a 6 added to the end of it?  It has happened to me for almost a year and I finally got fed up and decided to ask. It started on my previous HTC and has carried over to my S7.  I tell it to forget the words often, but it just keeps happening.  At least a couple times a day.  It's always a "6", never any other number. 

After last update swift keyboard beta Thai language fonts are way too small