Gboard might turn your keyboard into a trackpad with new cursor mode

Gboard is a highly customizable Android keyboard with vast gesture support, including glide typing, trail, and delete. To move the cursor around in a text field, Android users can tap and hold the insertion point and release it in a specific spot. Alternatively, Gboard includes glide cursor control, a feature that lets users move their cursor from left to right by holding and swiping along the space bar.

This implementation currently lacks support for changing paragraphs or lines easily, but Gboard might be adding a dedicated cursor mode for easier cursor movement and scrolling in a future update. We’ve uncovered the functionality in version 16.8.2.867538971-beta-arm64-v8a of the Gboard app. We were able to get an early look at the cursor mode feature, which essentially turns the Gboard keyboard area into a virtual trackpad.

After holding down the space bar, a virtual touch area will take the place of the digital keys. Users will see a virtual cursor appear, and dragging the cursor around the screen will move the text insertion point. Unlike the current glide cursor control, this upcoming feature is unrestricted. You can drag the cursor in any direction, and the software even lets the cursor leave the Gboard area.

As it currently stands, glide cursor control only supports swiping from left to right. To move between lines and paragraphs, Gboard users need to keep swiping left or right until they reach the end of the line of text to adjust the cursor up or down. It is not a practical solution for scrolling or moving between large blocks of text as a result.

The new cursor mode solves this issue completely, as the virtual trackpad area will allow users to scroll and move anywhere. It’s like swipe typing, but for moving your cursor. This would be particularly helpful on large phones or foldables, where it can be difficult to move the cursor near the top areas of the screen.

It’s unclear whether this Gboard tool would replace the current glide cursor control feature or simply expand it. We also don’t know when, or if, Gboard’s new cursor mode might release. However, it seems to address a key limitation of cursor control, and would be a welcome addition to Gboard.