Floating button

The floating button is a small button that floats over every app, with the keyboard open or closed. Each of its gestures runs an action you pick: open the keyboard on a screen with no text field, start voice typing, ask the AI about what’s on screen, look up a word you tap, open an app, or open any tool from the toolbar. Press and hold it and a quick menu of more actions fans out around it, and an action in that menu can be a category that opens a ring of its own.

It used to be two buttons, the floating keyboard button and the floating AI button, each with its own switch under Layout & size. They are one button now, and it has a screen of its own under Advanced. If you had only the AI button on, the button comes back with its tap set to Ask AI about this screen, in the place the AI button was. If you had the keyboard button on, nothing changes until you change it, and Ask AI about this screen is in its quick menu.

Options

WM Keyboard › Advanced › Floating button

The floating button is also a bundle on Extensions, as Floating button. Off there, the button comes down, this screen leaves Advanced and search, and the bundle’s switch moves Show the button with it. Its gestures and menu are kept for when it comes back.

Two more ways to switch it, without opening this screen: a Floating button tile you can add to Quick Settings, and the SET_FLOATING_BUTTON action for Tasker and other apps (see Automation). The tile opens this screen instead when Android hasn’t yet allowed the button to draw over other apps.

A preview heads the screen: a sketch of a phone with the button on the side it rests on and the quick menu fanned out beside it, in the size, colours and opacity set below. It changes as you change them.

Setting	Control	Default
Show the floating button	Toggle	Off
Allow display over other apps (shown only while Android hasn’t allowed it)	Link
Let the button read the screen (shown only when an action asks the AI or looks up a word and the screen reading service is off; not in the Play Store build)	Link
Let the button press system buttons (shown only when an action is Screenshot or a system button and the system buttons service is off; not in the Play Store build)	Link
Tap	Action	Show keyboard
Double tap	Action	Nothing
Press and hold	Action	Quick menu
Fixed in place	Toggle	Off
Swipe up, Swipe up and right, Swipe right, Swipe down and right, Swipe down, Swipe down and left, Swipe left, Swipe up and left (shown only while Fixed in place is on)	Action each	Nothing
Tap while open (shown only while Show while typing is on)	Action	Same as Tap
Double tap while open (shown only while Show while typing is on)	Action	Same as Double tap
Quick menu	List of up to 16 actions	Voice, Ask AI about this screen, Clipboard, Emoji, Show keyboard
Show names	Toggle	On
Distance from the button	Slider, 8 to 96 dp	22 dp
Opening animation	Choice of 5	Spring
Animation speed	Slider, 0.5× to 3×	1×
Colours	Choice of 4	Auto
Shape	Choice of 10	Circle
Thin pill on the edge	Toggle	Off
Pill thickness (shown only while Thin pill on the edge is on)	Slider, 2 to 16 dp	6 dp
Pill height (shown only while Thin pill on the edge is on)	Slider, 24 to 200 dp	72 dp
Touch area (shown only while Thin pill on the edge is on)	Slider, 4 to 48 dp	20 dp
Size	Slider, 40 to 72 dp	52 dp
Opacity	Slider, 30% to 100%	92%
Fade when idle	Slider, Never to 10 s	3 s
Faded opacity (shown only when Fade when idle isn’t Never)	Slider, 15% to 100%	45%
Tuck into the edge (shown only when Fade when idle isn’t Never and Thin pill on the edge is off)	Toggle	Off
Show while typing	Toggle	On
Float over the keyboard (shown only while Show while typing is on)	Toggle	Off
Hide in landscape	Toggle	Off
Vibrate on touch	Toggle	On
Reset position (shown only after the button has been moved)	Link

Show the floating button is the whole feature. It needs Android’s Display over other apps permission. Turning the switch on explains why and then opens Android’s page for it, and until you allow it there the row under the switch says what’s missing. The button is the only thing the keyboard draws with that permission, and the permission itself can’t see anything on screen. See Permissions.

Gestures

Tap, Double tap and Press and hold each open a list of everything the button can do. The button’s own actions come first:

• Show keyboard opens the keyboard over the app in front, even on a screen with no text field, and keeps it there until you close it. While the keyboard is open, the same action closes it, and the button’s icon turns into a keyboard with a down arrow to say so. See Opening the keyboard without a text field.
• Ask AI about this screen opens an AI chat about what’s on screen. See Asking the AI about the screen.
• Look up a word waits for you to tap a word anywhere on screen, then opens the Look up card for it. Not in the Play Store build. See Looking up a word.
• Quick menu fans the quick menu out around the button.
• Hide the button puts the button away until the keyboard next opens or closes.
• Nothing leaves the gesture unbound.
• Open an app opens a second list, every app on the phone that has an icon in the app drawer, the same list the app launcher shows. Search it by name and pick one, and the gesture opens that app. If the phone has a work profile, its apps follow under Work apps, with the briefcase on their icons, and one picked there opens in the work profile. With work apps paused, Android asks whether to turn them on. The row then names the app you picked. If the app is uninstalled later, the gesture says so instead of doing nothing.
• Open an app pair opens one of the app launcher’s split screen pairs: the first app full screen, then the second beside it in split screen, just as tapping the pair in the launcher does. The list shows each pair by the name you gave it, or by both apps’ names. Pairs are made in the launcher (hold an app and pick Pair in split screen with…), so with none yet the list says where. On a phone without split screen, only the first app opens. If either app is uninstalled later, the gesture says so.

Then System buttons, and Floating boxes after them.

System buttons

System buttons press Android’s own buttons for you, so the button can stand in for a gesture or a reach to the top of the screen:

• Back goes back, as Android’s back gesture or button does.
• Recent apps opens the recent apps screen.
• App drawer opens your launcher’s list of every app. Android 12 and later.
• Notifications pulls down the notification shade.
• Quick settings pulls down quick settings, with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tiles.

Android lets another app press these only through an accessibility service, so they need WM Keyboard system buttons turned on in Android’s accessibility settings, the same service the Screenshot tool uses. It presses the one button you asked for and reads nothing on screen. Until it’s on, the group shows a single Turn on system buttons row instead, which explains the service and then opens Android’s page for it. If one of these actions is already set and the service is turned off later, pressing it explains the service again, and a row under the switch at the top of this screen says what’s missing. Not in the Play Store build.

Floating boxes

Floating boxes: the calculator, the unit and currency converters, the clock, the to-do list, notes and Translate, each opened in a box that floats over the app instead of in the keyboard, without the keyboard coming up first. See Tools in a floating box.

After those, every tool from the toolbar, grouped the way the Tools screen groups them. A tool that lives on the keyboard, such as voice typing, the clipboard or emoji, brings the keyboard up first when it’s closed and opens as it arrives. Set Tap to Voice typing and one tap on the button starts dictation, from a button you can make as large as you like. Screenshot is one of them too, under Utilities: it runs without opening the keyboard, puts the button and the keyboard out of the way, takes the screenshot, and brings the button back. It needs its own accessibility service, and a row under the switch says so while it’s off. See Screenshot. With the keyboard already open, the same gesture closes the tool again.

The button’s icon is the icon of whatever Tap does. With Tap set to open an app, it’s that app’s own icon.

With Double tap set to anything but Nothing, a single tap waits a moment before it runs, to be sure no second tap is coming. That wait is the reason it’s off by default.

Fixed in place and swipes

Fixed in place pins the button where it is. A drag no longer moves it; instead, a swipe that starts on the button runs an action of its own for each direction it can go: up, down, left, right and the four diagonals in between. The eight Swipe rows set what each direction does, from the same list as the other gestures, and are shown only while the button is fixed. A direction set to Nothing does nothing.

You don’t have to set all eight. A swipe goes to the nearest direction that has an action, as long as it’s within about 67° of it, so with only up, down, left and right set, a swipe up and to the right still counts as up or right, whichever it’s closer to. While your finger is on its way, the button shows the icon of the action it will run, with a light tick each time that changes; let go to run it. A short swipe, under about 28 dp, doesn’t count. Tap, double tap and press and hold still work as before, and pressing and holding still opens the quick menu.

Move the button where you want it first, then fix it there. To move it later, turn Fixed in place off, drag it, and turn it back on. The cross for hiding the button only appears while dragging, so a fixed button is hidden with the Hide the button action instead. With TalkBack, each swipe that has an action is in the button’s actions menu.

It works the same on the thin pill: fix the pill to the edge, and swipe out of it in the directions you set.

While the keyboard is open

Tap while open and Double tap while open are the same two gestures for when the keyboard is on screen. Left at Same as Tap and Same as Double tap, they do whatever Tap and Double tap do. Pick something else and the button does that instead whenever the keyboard is open, so Tap can stay on Show keyboard and one tap brings the keyboard up while the next does something else. The button’s icon follows: with the keyboard open it shows the icon of Tap while open. A double tap set only here doesn’t make a tap with the keyboard closed wait. The two rows are shown only while Show while typing is on, since otherwise the button isn’t there while you type.

Leaving a text field

Android gives a keyboard no way to take the focus away from another app’s text field. Closing the keyboard leaves the cursor blinking in it, and Back often takes several presses to get out. Leave field gets out in the apps that answer the Esc key, which include browsers’ address bars: it presses Esc, closes the keyboard, and presses Esc a second time a moment later if the field still has the focus, because an address bar takes one Esc to drop its suggestions and another to let go. It’s an action rather than a tool, so it’s under Other in the list, not on the toolbar.

Set Tap while open to Leave field and the button opens the keyboard with one tap and takes you out of the field with the next, even with the clipboard or another panel open. Apps that ignore Esc keep the cursor in the field, but the keyboard still closes. You can also bind Leave field to a flick or a key’s long press.

Quick menu

The quick menu fans out around the button, facing the middle of the screen, so a button on the right edge opens to the left and one near a top corner opens down and inwards. Near the top or bottom of the screen the whole fan turns away from the edge, and widens if it has to, so every action stays on screen with the same gap between them. Opened by Press and hold, it can be used without letting go: slide your finger onto an action and lift it there to run it. Let go without moving and the menu stays open for a tap. Tap anywhere else, the cross where the button was, or Back (the button or the back gesture) to close it. Back closes only the menu: the app underneath doesn’t see it, and the keyboard stays up if it was.

The list on the screen is the menu in the order it fans out. Drag an action by its handle to move it, and use its bin to remove it. Add an action offers the same list as the gestures, without Quick menu and Nothing, and without what’s already in the menu, plus New category (see Categories). The menu holds up to sixteen actions. The first eight fan out round the button as before; from the ninth on, a second, wider ring opens outside the first, its actions sitting in the gaps between the inner ones. Both rings stay on screen, and a slide from Press and hold reaches either one. Sixteen actions with names under them take most of a phone’s screen, so turning Show names off is worth it for a full menu.

If no gesture opens the menu, a row says so, and tapping it sets Press and hold to Quick menu.

Show names writes each action’s name under its icon. Off, the menu is smaller, and only the action under your finger is named, above the button.

Distance from the button is how far out the actions sit, from 8 dp to 96 dp beyond the button’s edge. It’s 22 dp by default, which is where they always sat. The quick menu and every category use the same distance.

Opening animation is how the actions come out of the button:

• Spring (the default) shoots each one out from the button a moment after the one before, with a little bounce.
• Pop grows each one in its place, one after another.
• Sweep swings the ring round into place from the button’s side.
• Fade fades the whole ring in where it sits.
• None shows the ring at once.

Animation speed runs all of that faster or slower, from half speed to three times as fast, and the button’s own motion with it: popping up on screen and sliding back against its side after a drag. It’s 1× by default.

Categories

A category is an action in the quick menu that opens a ring of up to sixteen more actions in place of the menu’s own, on two rings past eight, like the menu. Make one with Add an action › New category: it joins the end of the menu, named Category, and its page opens. There you can rename it, give it an Icon so it can be told apart from your other categories in the menu (it’s a folder until you pick one, and Folder in the picker puts that back), add actions with Add an action (anything a menu action can be except another category, so a category is one level deep), drag them into order and remove them. Remove the category takes it and everything in it out of the menu. Later, the pencil beside the category in the menu list opens its page again. Removing a category from the menu list removes it too.

On the button, tap a category in the open menu and its ring replaces the menu’s. The cross where the button was turns into a back arrow: tap it, or press Back, to go back to the quick menu, and tap anywhere else to close it all. When you open the menu with Press and hold, slide onto a category and rest there for a moment, and its ring opens under your finger. Keep sliding onto one of its actions and lift your finger to run it. A category with nothing in it says so instead of opening.

Reset the menu puts back the five it starts with. It’s shown only once the menu differs from them.

Look

Colours is Auto, Dark, Light or Accent. Auto is dark when the phone’s dark theme is on and light when it isn’t. Accent uses the phone’s accent colour on Android 12 and later, and indigo before that. The quick menu takes the same colours.

Shape is the button’s outline: Circle (the default), Squircle, Rounded square, Oval, Diamond, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon, Star or Heart. The actions in the quick menu and in categories take the same shape. Every shape fills the same square as the circle, so changing it doesn’t move the button or make it take more of the screen. Size still sets that square. The pointed shapes draw the icon a little smaller to fit it inside.

Thin pill on the edge draws the button as a slim line flat against the side of the screen it rests on, in place of the round button, for a small screen where the button covers too much of the app. Every gesture works on it as on the round button: tap it, hold it for the quick menu, or drag it up and down or across to the other side. The quick menu fans out from where the round button would sit against that edge. Pill thickness is how thick the line is drawn and Pill height how tall it is. Touch area is how far in from the edge a touch still reaches it, so the line can stay thin while staying easy to hit; it’s never less than the pill’s own thickness. With Colours on Auto, the pill is dark when the phone’s dark theme is off and light when it’s on, like the gesture bar at the bottom of the screen. The pill already sits against the edge, so Tuck into the edge isn’t offered while it’s on.

Opacity is how solid the button is while you use it. After Fade when idle has gone by with no touch, it fades to Faded opacity, and with Tuck into the edge on it also slides half off the side it rests on, out of the way of the app. A touch brings it back at once, and the touch still counts: a tap on a faded or tucked button runs the tap.

Behaviour

Show while typing keeps the button on screen while the keyboard is open, lifted just above the keys, where Show keyboard closes the keyboard. Off, the button goes away when the keyboard opens and comes back when it closes.

Float over the keyboard lets the button stay exactly where you put it while the keyboard is open, even on top of the keys, instead of being lifted above them. It’s off by default. Only the button itself takes a touch: a key next to it, or one its shadow falls on, types as usual, and you can still drag the button anywhere, over the keys or off them. Its quick menu opens over the keyboard too. It needs no extra permission, because while the keyboard is open the button is drawn as part of the keyboard’s own window, the way a key’s preview is; when the keyboard closes it goes back to floating over the app.

Hide in landscape keeps it off the screen while the phone is sideways, for games and videos.

Vibrate on touch gives a light tick on a tap and a firmer one when the menu opens, when your finger reaches an action in it and when an action runs.

Moving and hiding the button

Drag the button to move it. It settles against the nearer side of the screen and stays where you left it. Dropped behind the open keyboard, it pops back up above it, unless Float over the keyboard is on. Reset position puts it back on the right edge, a little below the middle.

While you drag, a cross appears near the bottom of the screen. Drag the button onto it, and it snaps there with a tick, then let go to hide the button until the keyboard next opens or closes, for when it covers something you need.

With TalkBack, the button’s actions menu has its tap, its press and hold, its double tap, and every quick menu action, so the menu is reachable without the slide.

Asking the AI about the screen

Ask AI about this screen opens an AI chat as a sheet over the bottom of the screen, with the app still showing above it.

With screen reading on, the chat comes with the text that was on screen when you pressed: the article, the conversation, the error message. A line above the message box says so. View shows exactly that text, and Delete drops it. Nothing is sent until you ask something, and the Explain simply, Summarise and Hard words chips put a ready question in the box for you to send or change. Without screen reading the action still opens a chat, just with nothing attached, and a line under the model chips offers to turn it on.

Screen reading is an accessibility service, WM Keyboard AI screen reading, which you turn on in Android’s accessibility settings. The row Let the button read the screen appears under the switch until you do, whenever one of the button’s gestures or its quick menu asks the AI or looks up a word, and explains what it reads first. It reads the text of the app in front once per press and at no other time, skips password fields, and keeps nothing. It’s separate from the gestures service, which reads nothing. The Play Store build doesn’t contain it, so there the action always opens a plain chat. Screen reading picks up text, not pictures, so a photo on screen reaches the AI only through its caption or description.

To ask about one piece of text instead, select it in any app and pick Ask AI from the selection menu (on some phones it’s behind the menu’s three dots). The same sheet opens with just that text attached.

The chat uses the model picked in the AI tool, and the conversation is kept with your other chats, so it’s under Tools › AI › Chat afterwards. With an app lock on the AI chat, the sheet asks for it too. Tap above the sheet, the close button or Back to close it.

Looking up a word

Look up a word puts a light wash over the screen and a hint at the top, “Tap a word to look it up”. Tap a word and the Look up card opens for it, with its meaning, reading and pronunciation, and a button to make an Anki card of it. A swipe, or 10 seconds with no tap, cancels it.

It finds the word through the same screen reading service as Ask AI about this screen, reading only the text under your finger, once, when you tap. With the service off, the action opens a card that offers to turn it on. The Play Store build doesn’t contain the service or this action; there, select the word and pick Look up from the selection menu instead.