Fleksy as a third party keyboard

By Cat, 2 October, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

hi all,
First of all, I hope I am putting this in the right place. Okay, so I had the main fleksy app in IOS seven, so it did not say I have to buy it. Anyway I updated the app, and tried to get it to become a keyboard for IOS on my IPod running IOS 8.02, and I can not find the settings to turn voice feedback on. I understand it does not work with voiceover at the moment and I understand why. However I would like to use it, even with just voice feedback. Does anyone know what is going on here? is the settings gone or am I missing something? Thanks in advance.
all the best,
Cat

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Comments

By Seanoevil on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

Hi ,

I had a great typing experience using Fleksy as a third party App on my iPhone5, running IOS8.0.
Sure, I had to triple click VO off, but with Voice feedback enabled it worked well for long messages.
But something has happened and I can no longer make Fleksy work...
The Voice Feedback switch button remains on (found in the Settings screen of the App), and I can switch to and use the App but with absolutely no spoken feedback. The swipe sounds and screen clicks all work, just not Voice Feedback.
I wonder whether this change is as a result of my upgrading to IOS8.02?
All I know for certain is that I want my Fleksy back!
Sea No Evil

By Dave on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

I have experienced a similar situation with Speak Screen, where the controls appear, but there's no sound. The only solution I've found is to reboot. Hold the Home and Lock buttons until the Apple logo appears. I think there are bugs in iOS 8 involving this kind of audio.

By Edward Alonzo on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

Hello: this has been a much talked about topic on apple vis community. I to have had the issue when trying to use the fleksy keyboard on 8.0.2. I don't like the fact that you have to turn vo off and on again but it is what it is but I stopped receiving audio to from the speech feedback and, I can no longer find any settings in the fleksy app version 4.02. so I've had to completely uninstalled it. its very disappointing, but I can't use it if its not reliable.
supposedly, theres a fix coming but I still feel like we were left out in the cold like forget all the people who made this app what it is today and now it seems to be all about lets get up to number 1 in the app store as a third-party keyboard and forget the people who made the appp what it is today.

By Kyle on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

the way I've found to get voice feedback back was to go back into the settings app and give the keyboard full access again, or what ever its called. even though it might be already given, turn it off, then turn it back on. then it should bring back the voice feedback. but then once it goes away, you'll have to go back into the settings and toggle it again. not really sure what makes the voice go away. would really like to know. hope this helps

By treky fan on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

I have flexsi set up as a third party keyboard. While using it to text a friend, I got a word wrong, so tried to swip down to find suggestions. This was not read as well as other puncuation marks. Am I do something wrong or is this just another bug?

By Seanoevil on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

Thanks Kyle. That tip worked.
For now...

By Bahzad on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 16:47

The settings specific to Fleksy can be found by tapping the left-hand corner of the screen. VoiceOver will say "menu tab," at which point you'll need to flick right to navigate to "settings." Double-tap the option, and voice feedback should be at the bottom. If you find that navigating to the menu doesn't work, try re-launching the app. Good luck.

By Jessica Brown on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

Hi. I tried Fleksy a few days ago and it did not work all that well. I did not know untill just now when I read through this thread that VO had to be off. What's this voice feedback thing? How does it work? What does it do?

By peter on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I have been using Fleksy reasonably successfully on my iPhone 6 running iOS 8.1.1.

Some hints:

1. You need to enable "full Access" in the Settings / Keyboard / Fleksy dialog.
2. Then, within the Fleksy app itself, you need to enable "Voice Feedback in the Fleksy Settings dialog.
3. Yes, Fleksy does work with VoiceOver turned on!!! You don't need to turn VO off.
4. Once you are in an edit field which has been activated, you need to touch the keyboard area once to get the Fleksy keyboard to start recognizing what you type.
5. The keyboard works a bit better for the visually impaired (or the novice user) if you use the minimized keyboard. to do this swipe two fingers down. This basically hides the spacebar and some other keys.
6. To switch keyboards you must then disable the minimized keyboard. You do this by swiping up with two fingers. Now the spacebar and some other keys will be visible again. In particular, you will see a key labeled "123" which can be pressed to get numbers and more special symbols. The button to switch custom keyboards is also made visible by disabling the minimized keyboard.

I hope this helps. Hopefully the Fleksy team will include some of these tips for using voiceOver in the app Help instructions (and hopefully people will read them!).

--Pete

By Jessica Brown on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

Oh. Previous posts in this thread say VoiceOver needs to be off.

By Jessica Brown on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

What about the Fleksy VO app? Can it be set as a third-party keyboard? Does anyone use it anymore?

By treky fan on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I still use flexsi vo. You can't use flexsi as a third party keyboard. I wish you could.

By alex wallis on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I still have fleksy vo even though unfortunately its no longer available, and the landscape setting is broken. I have tried the official fleksy app as a third party keyboard and quite simply I just get on better with fleksy vo, because the typing area is bigger, I find it more accurate than the fleksy app, and its not full of visual clutter like all those themes for sighted users.
I also have no confidence when typing with the official fleksy app because of the sounds which I find inaudible and also it only gives me three or four at most suggestions, personally I can't see myself switching to the latest fleksy as a proper on screen keyboard it limits my productivity two much, I was really excited when apple announced third party keyboard integration, but I think the reality for me at least is it has done little to improve ios accessibility or productivity and certainly fleksy has fallen a long way from its beginnings.
I actually now routinely use a Bluetooth keyboard for typing I would no longer recommend people to spend money on fleksy because of how awkward I find it to use, the developers keep promising VoiceOver improvements but where are they? they have made a few tweaks and yes OK its accessible, but put it this way with the old fleksy app I never ever got rubbish when I typed, now its very easy for me to make fleksy turn out rubbish instead of real words.

By Ro on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I've tried all the suggestions here and I can't successfully use it as a third party keyboard. I've never gotten it to type even a short text or tweet no matter what I do. And The two finger swipe to get that switch back to the iOS keyboard is hit or miss so much that I have to go disable it just to get the normal keyboard back. I too use a Bluetooth keyboard but when I'm out, it's too bulky to carry so I just don't type. I didn't know Fleksy VO still worked. I don't think I kept it though, crap.

By Mike Freeman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I still use it, like it and wish the fleksy folks wouldn't be so hard-nosed, refusing to maintain it when they clearly indicated when it came out that it would always be maintained and available. However, I'm still running iOS 7.1.2 and don't plan to upgrade to iOS 8.whatever until a lot more bugs are squashed. Moreover, I always considered it a bad idea to have fleksy as a 3rd-party keyboard. but that's just my opinion. I doubt Fleksy VO would work as a 3rd-party keyboard in any event since the Fleksy developers have stated that they "learned their lesson" -- whatever *that* was -- when they released Fleksy VO and vowed not to release any other versions of Fleksy. Frankly, I think Fleksy VO had it about right and what's been happening since is more in the nature of "rampant featuritis" and bling than useful functioning.

Again, just my opinion.

By peter on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I find Fleksy fairly useable with VoiceOver and iOS 8.1.1 or 8.1.2. You should make sure you have the latest version of Fleksy.

Yes, there are times that I have trouble inputting a particular word, but I think that is mostly a matter of getting used to the dimensions of the Fleksy keyboard. It is a bit easier to use if one changes to the minimal keyboard with a two finger swipe down (to hide the spacebar and some other buttons), but I mostly use it with the regular Fleksy keyboard just because this makes it easier to find the buttons to switch to the numeric keyboard and/or switch to Apple's default keyboard.

Also, in the latest Fleksy release, the method of entering specific characters is now implemented. For example, if you want to enter a specific character, you hold your finger on the keyboard until you hear a letter announced, then, while still holding your finger on the screen, move to the desired character. As soon as you remove your finger, the desired character is entered.

I also occasionally have trouble swiping up/down to change the desired word, but again, this mostly works and I think is mostly due to the fact that I might miss the active part of the keyboard when swiping because I still need to get used to the smaller keyboard dimensions.

With a bit of practice, however, I think this keyboard can be very useful.

Note: Again, there is no need to turn off VoiceOver!!!

--Pete

By Chelsea on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

Hi, Thanks for all the great tips! I just tried Fleksy this morning and am having trouble with the voice feedback. The voice says "space" quickly as if it is saying it over the word you typed instead of the actual word. Very annoying and makes the voice feedback not all that helpful. Anyone else experiencing this?

By peter on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 16:47

I only hear Fleksy say "space" once in a while. It isn't consistent enough for me to figure out under what circumstances I hear the space. Most often I do not hear the space, just the word I typed in after I swipe right to accept the word and automatically enter the space.

Try using the minimized keyboard layout (two finger swipe down). Maybe we're hitting the space keys accidentally while swiping.

This app does take a bit of practice, but I believe one can work it out. I am guessing that most of the problems come in because of the small dimensions of the keyboard and accidentally touching someplace outside the keyboard. If one does that, then one generally needs to touch the keyboard once again to restart it before typing.

Using the minimized keyboard can help somewhat.

--Pete