Is it possible to change some/all auto spacing behavior around punctuation?

First time poster, user of swiftkey since beginning of Jan '15.

I'm glad this thread exists because I am an avid user of the semicolon and the lack of an auto-space after it has been driving me ABSOLUTELY NUTS.

If this is really a huge concern in terms of pissing off some users because they can't easily make emoticons (obviously a large portion of SMS'es) or continuing to piss off users who want to easily text with proper grammar and punctuation (my texts often read like novels), then why not make it a toggle option in the settings?

Want to make emoticons the old fashioned way like a champ? Don't auto-space after semicolons. Or would you like to sustain the dying art of proper grammar and punctuation to make your grandparents proud? Auto-space that bad boy.

If you don't want it cluttering up the main settings area, bury that s**t deep in the settings menu, where only those who truly care will find it after searching for it's location online.

And while I'm at it, what's the deal with the "ellipsis" auto-spacing and auto-capitalizing afterward ? I'm not finished my sentence yet! Don't make me start a new thought whilst obviously in the middle of another! Just so we're clear, I want to put three periods in a row with NOTHING auto-happening. And I use a TON of ellipses, more than I probably should.

Thanks! Otherwise I'm pretty damn happy with Swiftkey, so keep up the awesome work but PLEASE take note of my suggestions, eh?

Hi epatroni,

You make some good points but it's still just not that easy.

Yes, we could just burry it deep in the settings, BUT the amount of people who would find it would be low. You want to make things easy to find. The more deep & complex settings get, people just go, screw this, I'm out *uninstall*.

We can indeed collect data to see what is being used more, emoticons or proper grammar. I've already brought this issue up with our PM.

I can definitely see how it's a tricky subject.

As far as the ellipsis, there is an official one hit the 123 key > longpress the period > select the ellipsis. This will add a space but it will not caps the next word.

I do take all feedback into account when I talk with each respective teams.

Thanks for the input.

Best,

Ryan

On 3/12/2015 at 11:12 AM, Prad said:

You want to make things easy to find.

I agree. And a very intuitive place to put a toggle setting would be in "Typing & Autocorrect." It wouldn't make the settings unnecessarily complex, as it is just a single toggle, and it would fix this whole debate over whether or not to auto-space around semicolons and colons.

14 hours ago, pillravi said:

I agree. And a very intuitive place to put a toggle setting would be in "Typing & Autocorrect." It wouldn't make the settings unnecessarily complex, as it is just a single toggle, and it would fix this whole debate over whether or not to auto-space around semicolons and colons.

But see, everyone wants a setting for something else. Yes, in theory, it's easy to add the setting.

But when person a wants an easy setting for this, person b wants an easy setting for that, etc, etc. That is where things become complex.

2 hours ago, Prad said:

But when person a wants an easy setting for this, person b wants an easy setting for that [...]

It's not just person A asking for this functionality, now, is it? Many people are requesting it. An effective customer service strategy would be to add the functionality.

On 1/12/2016 at 3:09 PM, pillravi said:

It's not just person A asking for this functionality, now, is it? Many people are requesting it. An effective customer service strategy would be to add the functionality.

This one's a pretty big deal -- In looking for a way to turn off the autospacing, I've found that I'm far from the only one who finds this continually problematic.  If the product makes it take a whole lot longer to type a URL or e-mail address, whatever other productivity gains I've achieved are now offset.  Every time I go through a fight on this, I get annoyed enough that I immediately switch over to another keyboard, which I then use for weeks until I switch back again because the prediction isn't as good on the other.  Often I deal with that and stay with that keyboard for extended time because I don't find it worth wasting my time fighting the auto-spacing.  This is a genuine productivity killer and it should be optional.  Every new beta that comes along, that's the first thing I try and then come away disappointed because it still hasn't been addressed.

One article I read where someone was evaluating alternative keyboards for this very reason asked whether the developers even use their own product.  Fair question, because I have to wonder how they aren't finding this behavior intolerable.

On 12/13/2014 at 2:05 PM, Wintersdark said:

I'm a huge fan of SwiftKey and have been using it off and on since it's earliest days. However, one little thing causes me endless frustration.

I use Google+ a lot. Google+ uses "_", "*" and "-" for formatting. SwiftKey insists and very aggressively putting spaces after - and removing spaces before _.

_ in particular really frustrates me. With the spaces after - I can just tap backspace and continue, but with_ a battle ensues involving careful hunt and peck to tap just the right spot.

I don't mind sacrificing all auto spacing but of course I'd prefer to just change those in particular. Any hope for me?

This, right here, is what stops me from using Swiftkey.  In order to use *, _, +, and - as google+ formating requires outright battle with Swiftkey.

I love Swiftkey otherwise, truly do, and I want to be able to use it full time as my keyboard.  But the inability to do that in particular really makes it an aggravating experience.

I recognize that you can't just stuff in dozens of settings, but this is a make or break issue for a lot of users.  It makes Swiftkey, otherwise so awesome, actually unpleasant to use for many.

I've followed this discussion literally for years.  Bought the app, but never use it simply because of this problem.  I hope to one day be able to use it again.

I wish they would just get rid of auto spacing.

Make it simple and toggle it on or off.

None of the "only after periods but not after ellipses."

On or off and that's it.

Auto space removal for colons as done for question marks or exclamation points is on top of my wishlist, along with comma ( with auto space added after) being the default key in iOS instead of the period, and shortcut gestures for ? and !

That would make SwiftKey nearly perfect (and completely perfect if only I could use 3 languages instead of the limit of 2 in iOS).

12 hours ago, M T said:

Auto space removal for colons as done for question marks or exclamation points is on top of my wishlist

Yep, colons and semicolons are my priorities as well.

Since I first posted on this topic, I've been consciously monitoring my colon and semicolon use. I noticed, as some people brought up, that I actually do use them to create emoji in which case the current functionality is nice. However, since the "snap back" doesn't happen even when I'm using these punctuation marks as actual punctuation, the keyboard is frustrating in these instances.

I came up with an algorithm that would prevent the addition of a setting, but also fix this problem for both the emoji camp and the punctuation camp:

1. If a non-space character is typed after ':' or ';', then don't snap back. (The colon/semicolon is likely "eyes" of an emoji.)

2. If a space character is typed after ':' or ';', then do snap back. (This would indicate its use in a grammatical sense.)

Prad, I think this is a reasonable request to bring before the developers. Thank you.

I just wanted to add that this is one of the main reasons I moved away from swiftkey about a year ago. It has the best prediction of any keyboard I've used, but the inability to type effectively with semicolon and colon and the difficulty to type anything complex using punctuation irritated me too much and made me switch to Swype. I've been using Swype for a year, but the poor predictions are irritating me and I switched back to Swiftkey (remembering the complex punctuation issues, but forgetting about the colons and semicolons).

I soon remembered about the issue with semicolons and colons. I would like add my vote to making it so that semicolon and colon auto-backspace. Actually, in general I'd love to see Swiftkey provide more automatic spacing options. It knows you have completed a word... why can't it just add the space upon typing the next word? Why does it have to add it before typing the word??

Its been 4 years and they dont even know how to remove this annoying auto space after a period? Nahhh..

Any update. Why not to leave users to use punctuation as they want. Me, I hate? Right close to the word