Don’t like your Samsung Galaxy keyboard? Make your own!

Regardless of how we feel about virtual keyboards, many of us type more words on our phones than anywhere else. If you’re frustrated with your Samsung Galaxy phone’s keyboard, not only can you swap it for an alternative, you can even make your own!

All you need is Keys Café.

Yes, there is a Good Lock module for everything

I used to be unhappy with the popularity of Galaxy phones, but Samsung devices have gradually won me over, and their immense customization is a big part of that. If you haven’t heard of Good Lock yet, head over to the Play Store and download it now.

This app is reason enough to buy Samsung phones. Through the use of various modules, you can configure virtually any aspect of your phone. No option from any other phone maker comes close.

To take full control of your keyboard, you want to install a module called Keys Cafe. Simply scroll through the list of available modules after opening the app. You can’t miss it.

You can change the color and animation of each key

Most phone keyboards come with a handful of themes. There is usually a light and dark theme, as well as one or two high contrast options. The differences between them are not that marked. While you might be able to tell the difference between the iPhone, Google Pixel, and Samsung Galaxy keyboards just by looking at them, they still look a bit identical. After all, everyone must please as many people as possible.

Keys Café gives you the freedom to express yourself. Do you like virtual keys to have a shape or do you prefer to just see letters on a flat background? Do you want each key to have an outline or drop shadow? You can even make your accents lime green on a bright pink background if that’s your jam.

Additionally, Keys Cafe comes with a handful of animations that can occur when you press a button. As you type, your keys may shake, bounce, expand, or shrink.

Personally, I came to Keys Cafe mainly to have fun with the look of my keyboard. You may find my personal taste boring, as I created a white keyboard where the keys have minimal contrast and the key press animation is a subtle flash of gray. It’s like I’m writing on a cloud. For a while, however, I had my keys shaking and glowing a random color every time.

But looks aren’t everything, and for others, I imagine that might not even be the main appeal of this mod.

Change which keys you see and where

Your keyboard is what you make it

One advantage that Android keyboards have over iPhone keyboards is that they allow you to hold down one character to select another character. You also have the option of keeping a number line always visible. These options only scratch the surface of what Keys Cafe can do.

Keys Cafe offers a complete keyboard builder. A grid of available keys appears at the top of the screen that you can drag on your virtual keyboard to change the location of the available keys. If you regularly write in Roman numerals, you can create a number row from them. If you constantly type special characters, like the em dash or the euro symbol, you can assign them a permanent place on your main keyboard, saving you from pressing the character key over and over again.

There are games and metrics to improve your typing

Phone keypads have never been so fun

When you open Keys Cafe, the first thing you see are metrics showing how many words you typed each day and how many you were able to produce per minute. It’s a fun little statistic that gives you an idea of ​​how prolific you are on a virtual keyboard.

Even more fun, there are also typing games built into the module. These are much simpler than the best typing games for your PC, but they’re a good way to test if your keyboard works for you. I spent some time adjusting the height and width of my keyboard, then playing a typing game to see which configuration worked best for me.

Two games are offered, one of them offering you various sentences to type as quickly as possible. The other challenges you to type individual words before they rain down from the top of the screen.

I remember being taught how to use a physical keyboard in school, so it feels strange to train my speed on a virtual keyboard – but ultimately, as someone who types for a living, no one cares what I type on, as long as the words are written.

Keys Cafe is not a flawless experience. Like some other Good Lock modules, it may introduce some stutters or glitches that are not present on the default keyboard. For the most part, things work. Whether you turn to Keys Cafe to spark joy or for extra features, it’s the kind of thing you miss when you move to a non-Galaxy device.