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.

spoiler

Discussion about Contacts, SMS and Dialers app is here.

Discussion about Calculators, Cameras and Calendars apps is here.

Discussion about Manager files, Recorders, Galleries and Video editors apps is here.

top 42 comments

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[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I yearn for the day a FOSS keyboard for Android will have functional multilingual autocorrect. Most of the typing I do on my phone is in Frenglish and every FOSS keyboard I've tried has made it impossible to have autocorrect turned on. They always default to autocorrecting in either only English or only French which is just very frustrating.

Compare that to SwiftKey, which not only has no issues with mixed languages, also learns my texting patterns, such as typing j'fais rather than je fais. I just don't give it any permissions, including network access. It's one of the only proprietary things on my phone but I couldn't use my phone without it.

[–] gogosempai@programming.dev 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Have you tried this active fork of OpenBoard? The dev added support for multilingual typing months ago. This, it also has Material You theme as well as glide typing (needs to be turned on manually).

[–] fievel@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

Really happy with this fork, using it for several months now. Also occasionally Unexpected Keyboard for termux / ssh / code ....

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I was honestly hoping for a reply like this when I commented. I'll give it a try, thanks! 😊 I'd love to ditch SwiftKey.

Edit: So far, it's the by far best FOSS option I've tried. There's even a couple of things it does much better than SwiftKey IMO (although I do wish there were an option to make the keyboard a bit smaller, it feels massive!) I'll stick with it for 2-3 weeks to try and train its auto-correct to my liking.

[–] AnActOfCreation@programming.dev 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hate how good SwiftKey's autocorrect is. I'm definitely on the hunt for a good alternative in this thread.

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

I've been using the OpenBoard fork since it got recommended in this thread and it's been good enough for me to disable SwiftKey (not delete yet though, I'm not ready to fully commit to deleting that accrued personal dictionary). I recommend checking it out!

[–] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] dez@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

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

[–] dez@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Notally it's been my main one for writing things when I need. Imo, is really really good and simple.

As someone suggest me here on Lemmy, the keyboard im using is OpenBoard from Helium314 github page.

About Music Players, I used Auxio and Metro (a fork from Retro MusicPlayer) and liked it.

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Auxio is excellent and use Material design.

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm extremely picky about Notes apps. I've tested so many Open source as well as closed source apps. I'll be interested in what others are using, but the features I want are:

Cross platform (Android, Linux, and MacOS)
Universal format - markdown is a bonus
Good task handling with checklist support

So what I've settled with is Obsidian (not open source) due to its simplicity of reading and writing to a folder hierarchy of plain text files. But since it sucks at task and checklists, I've been using Quillpad. It only syncs with Nextcloud at the moment, but there is promise of plain text file and bring-your-own-sync-solution on the roadmap.

Notesnook is a nice app, but since it's all E2EE, there is no plain text without exporting your notes manually. Shame too because it handles tasks and checklists very nicely.

Honorable mention: Acreom it's not open source yet, but that is on the roadmap. It is local first and plain text files on desktop OSes...but not on Android, meaning of you want to sync between your desktop and mobile you have to use their cloud. And I don't want to do that.

Joplin gets mentioned constantly. But it adds weird metadata to every text file and changes the titles of the files to some garbled hexadecimal string, which makes it impossible to know what you're looking at at the file level. And the task management/checklists is awful. Android app is bad too. I'm sure I'll get hate for hating on the FOSS golden child, but that's ok. This is simply my opinion. Like I said I'm very picky.

[–] lambchop@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I haven't used it, but I've heard logseq is pretty much FOSS obsidian.

[–] joeldebruijn@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Notes: Joplin

Maps: OSMand, Organic Maps, StreetComplete, Vespucci, EveryDoor

Music: VLC

[–] t0fr@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Notes:

Logseq

Music (Local Mp3 apps)

[–] MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 months ago

Orgzly is a great notes app. Zero complaints.

I love Retro Music Player, it's almost perfect.

[–] therebedragons@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago

I've enjoyed anysoft and floris keyboards but I want something open source with gif support. Might go back to swiftkey just because of it.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

Muaic: InnerTune (F-Droid), Deezloader to get mp3s (apk)

[–] fievel@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

For notes I'm using Joplin with sync with desktop client through a nextcloud instance. Really a very nice app if you want sync with multiple devices anc user friendly interface.

For maps OsmAnd, I even pay a subscription to support the project (and have hourly updated maps which is pretty cool when I fix wood paths in openstreetmap).

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

For notes I really like Quillnotes.

[–] Jonnsy@slrpnk.net 1 points 9 months ago

Quillnotes is dead But Quillpad is a fork of it

[–] nailoC5@lemy.lol 2 points 9 months ago

Fcitx5 supports CJK

[–] jerrythegenius@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] sag@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I use Simple Keyboard and sometime Fboard.

And to play music I use RiMusic and also used Retro Music in past.

And NotiNotes for notes. A notes app which lives in notification.

[–] BlanK0@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Keyboard: OpenBoard

Notes: Quillpad

Music: Symphony

Maps: OsmAnd~

[–] Kolli@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 months ago

Wildcard for keyboard: ThumbKey

This has been pretty great, although unique.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Openboard
Quillnote
Organic Maps
ViMusic - music streaming but after 1st listen songs are cached for offline play.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I use session for taking notes and "syncing" them with my PC. I guess any messaging app with a desktop client would work.

[–] sleep_walker@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Keyboard: OpenBoard (works great, support anonymous mode, my layout, emojis, paste, move cursor using finger over space button, longer deletes using finger over backspace)
Music Player: Odyssey (I don't rely on ID3 tags but directory structure instead - there is too little of those players who use it)
Music Player: ViMusic (FOSS interface to Youtube Music)
Music Player: RadioDroid (for online radio stations)

[–] kittykittycatboys@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 months ago

my fav music player is sicmu playr cuz it handles large music collections very well !!

[–] jackpot@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

music player: auxio or symphony

auxio is more simple but has less features. symphony is the inverse. pick your poison

[–] macattack@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

For music, I use FinAmp. Basically have self-host JellyFin and can stream the music over LAN w/o using storage, or download it to my phone for offline listening

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 9 months ago

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

[–] Asudox@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Keyboard: FlorisBoard

Music Player: InnerTune

[–] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

##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

[–] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 1 points 9 months ago

Maps: Organic Maps

Notes: Note calendar. Type in notes for a specific day. A beautifully simple app.

[–] FuryMaker@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] Daeraxa@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Keyboard: AnySoftKeyboard and Unexpected Keyboard
Notes: Joplin

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago

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!

[–] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

Hacker's Keyboard is the only keyboard app I'll accept on Android.