Swipe Access to Punctuation from Period Key

[gringrant]

Background I am coming from SwiftKey. A fully offline keyboard with a local language model is appealing to me, and would like to switch, but I have picked up some deeply rooted, SwiftKey-niche habits from years of SwiftKeying that I need this keyboard to support in order to type comfortably.

Current behavior Currently the period (.) key is located in the natural spot, and like the other keys, has a secondary key palette accessed by long-press → swipe. This is a good solution for characters that are infrequent, (e.g. @%_). It's quicker than accessing the symbol board (tap → find → tap → tap), but doesn't take up valuable real estate for the frequent characters.

However the exclamation mark (!) and question mark (?) are currently treated as infrequent characters relegated to the secondary key palette associated with the period (.) key. While these marks are not frequent enough for their own button, requiring a long-press -> swipe to type them is too burdensome and halts my typing flow too often.

SwiftKey behavior SwiftKey solves this issue by not requiring a long-hold to open period's (.) secondary key palette. I can (without waiting for the long-press delay) flick my finger across the period key, and depending on the direction, I will type an exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?) depending on the direction I flicked in. Since swipe-typing has no effect if originating from the period key, there are no gesture conflicts. This is a deeply rooted habit I have, since it's just about as fast as using a short tap button.

Proposed behavior I propose that the period key's palette be accessible from a swipe, and that both the exclamation mark (!) and question mark (?) be accessible with a left or right swipe. I would prefer if the direction matched SwiftKey's with the exclamation mark (!) being on the left and the question mark (?) being on the right (FUTO keyboard currently has this backwards).

Period (.) key gesture table: Gesture	Speed	SwiftKey	Current FUTO	Proposed FUTO
Tap	Very Fast	Period (.)	Period (.)	Period (.)
Swipe Right	Fast	question mark (?)	nothing	question mark (?)
Swipe Left	Fast	exclamation mark (!)	nothing	exclamation mark (!)
Long Tap	Slow	Period (.)	question mark (?)	question mark (?)*
Long Tap Swipe	Very Slow	Select from palette	Select from palette	Select from palette

*The question mark needs to be accessible from a swipe, but having it accessible from long tap as well is sensible. You might need the question mark take up both the center space and the immediate right space on the palette if this path is taken.

I do like that the FUTO keyboard has fun punctuation options (e.g. ‽…) that deserve their spot in the palette, but the typing of the exclamation mark (!) and question mark (?) needs to be instantaneous. Additionally having the punctuation layout similar to SwiftKey, users like my self will be able to learn this keyboard much quicker.

[Gadetron]

i too want this, along with the Comma on the left side of the space bar, as similar to swiftkey

[Archov]

After numbers breaking auto correct, this is the second thing that makes me miss swiftkey, I was very used to the way it functioned on swiftkey.

I would suggest also that I would like a swipe left or right on the period without lifting immediately should just pop open the palette.