Anyone use F-Droid apps on a notebook (with keyboard and mouse)?

Hi

anyone use F-Droid apps on a notebook (with keyboard and mouse)?

I wish to buy a Pinebook. I have no Google account.

Is somebody actually using (not only testing) those Apps with keyboard and mouse (no touchscreen)?

Can you write a few sentences about the experience?

I use my tablet with a keyboard (no mouse). The experience is so-so. For example, hot keys in Fennec work only in English layout, some keys work only when a particular widget is focused, etc. Some apps like SkyTube don’t support playback control keys (though one would expect this from a media app). Some apps (e.g. Termux) show useless on-screen controls, duplicating some hardware keys.

The bottom line: developers don’t test apps with hardware keyboards. Expect bugs and annoyances. But if you need to type text (even small amounts), hardware keyboard saves a lot of time.

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  • if you have a matching USB OTG to USB Type A adapter you could connect mouse or keyboard to the smartphone and check with the apps you care about (hub might work too).

  • there are Bluetooth keyboards (some with mouse pad) which can be used with your mobile phone (prefer Bluetooth Low Energy over Bluetooth).

  • the Raspberry Pi could maybe also be used to get an idea of the look and feel.
    I never did this myself so I don’t know what I’m suggesting!)
    (Android - Raspberry Pi Forums could be a starting point)

F-Droid and the apps are not designed for keyboard yet.

My app “The Light” is probably the only one adapted for keyboard.

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The Pine64 and Raspberry pi are similar projects.See here

I ran F-Droid using Android x86 for a bit about 4 years ago. The F-Droid app itself was one of the most fiddly ones but not totally unusable. Others like K9 were great.

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