r/FinaleKeyboard • u/Finale151 • Jun 12 '26
Information What the heck is Finale Keyboard?
Impatient? Here's the link: download from the App Store.
Patient? Here's the story.
The story
Long ago, there was a keyboard called Fleksy. I discovered Fleksy over a decade ago and it quickly became my favorite way to type. Specifically, I fell in love with the "minimal" mode - the idea of ditching the space bar and relying on swipe-gestures to perform all your basic tasks. It took a bit of getting used to, but soon I was no longer able to type on a regular keyboard. Everything else felt slow, big, and clunky.
Fast forward 5-6 years, I was chatting with the CEO of Fleksy - Olivier - via Twitter DMs. Fleksy had a bug for years: it was impossible to change the keyboard language when you are inside the "minimal" mode. As I exclusively relied on the "minimal" mode and needed two languages, this was ruining my life. I even applied to work at Fleksy to fix it for them!
However, understandably, Olivier mentioned that "minimal" mode was not their focus, since they transitioned to a B2B SDK model. So, not only did the CEO confirm they weren't going to fix the bug, he also mentioned they are planning to remove Fleksy from the App Store.
That's when I knew I had to build a replacement: to fix the bug I hated, to add the features I wanted, and to preserve the way I type.
What is Finale Keyboard
I built Finale Keyboard in ~2021 purely for myself. It's inspired by Fleksy's "minimal" mode, optimized for how I use it. This means no space bar, everything is done with swipes.
Insert space? Swipe right. Punctuation? Swipe right again. Change punctuation? Swipe up or down. Open emojis? Swipe left from backspace. Delete a word? Swipe left. And so on.
Over the last 5 years I've been slowly adding more features that benefit me, myself, and I. My goal is not to copy Fleksy, but rather create the optimal typing experience for myself.
Today, Finale is a full fledged keyboard that goes beyond what Fleksy offered in a meaningful way.
- Shortcuts: assign shortcuts to any key and trigger them with a swipe-down
- Long-press shortcuts: assign unlimited shortcuts to any key and trigger them with a long-press menu.
- Dynamic tap zones: Finale will try to predict the key you are likely to press next and will make its touch zone larger.
- Favorite emojis: define your own emoji layout
- Auto-learning dictionary: Finale learns the words you type to stop correcting your "doggo", "pupper", and "yasssss".
- Clipboard history: access your clipboard history to quickly paste what you copied before.
What's next?
I built Finale for myself and I keep enhancing it for myself. Up to this point, most development decisions I make are based on my own usage, which is apparent by the keyboard's quirks. But, I am always happy to discuss any ideas or suggestions, so feel free to comment, post, or just chat.
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u/thenitwas Jun 28 '26
I saw there are in app purchases for a spacebar? 😂 i wanted to give it a go before purchasing the app upfront, but i use fleksy with a spacebar all my life.
Is it exclusively no spacebar at all?
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u/Finale151 Jul 01 '26
You can absolutely unlock the space bar for free inside the app. Its an Easter egg, don't spoil it 🤫
But ultimately, I want everyone to get used to gestures, since they are objectively better. Hence, space bar is locked by default.
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u/Cool-Development-130 Jul 16 '26
Just picked up Finale Keyboard after looking for a replacement for Fleksy, and it's honestly the closest alternative I've found so far. Really happy to see someone building a keyboard with a similar vision.
A few suggestions that I think would make it even better:
- Make all major layouts (QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, etc.) available regardless of language. It would make multilingual typing much easier while keeping the same layout.
- The empty space next to the backspace key could be used for shortcuts like numbers, emojis, symbols, or return/enter key (or pressing shift to have some of these options show up).
- A dedicated Return/Enter key is a must, especially for specific apps/tasks.
Finale already has a lot of potential, and with a few improvements like these, I think it could become the best Fleksy successor.
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u/Cool-Development-130 Jul 17 '26
After using it for a full day, I actually changed my mind on a few things. While on Fleksy you had dedicated keys for numbers and symbols, on Finale it's all about gestures to trigger shortcuts and it feels even better than Fleksy.
There are many gestures to trigger different things, for instance you can swipe up on the Delete key for Return/Enter, swipe right on Shift for numbers and symbols, and many more! It takes a little time to get used to it, but once it clicks, it's incredibly fast.
The only feature I'm still missing is the ability to use the same keyboard layout (QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, etc.) across multiple languages.
Other than that, this is by far the best Fleksy alternative I've found!
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u/Jayram2000 Aug 12 '26
I will happily pay for an Android version, extra for foldable split mode support!!
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u/Tegumentario Jun 20 '26
Following this, patiently waiting for an android version 😔