
Plover: Thought to Text at 240 WPM (2013) [video] - zaroth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g
======
ploversteno
Hot off the press: Please view my latest steno coding video, where I
transcribe a somewhat longer snippet of Python from the Plover codebase!

[http://youtu.be/jRFKZGWrmrM](http://youtu.be/jRFKZGWrmrM)

I'm still just a Python novice, so obviously I didn't write this code
originally; I'm just transcribing it from a text file into Vim to demonstrate
how easily and fluently code can be written with steno. It's not primarily
about speed, but about chunking commands and words into single strokes, as
opposed to breaking them down into individual letters and typing each letter
out one by one as in qwerty. Also notice how simple error correction is; an
incorrect word is deleted with a single stroke.

For more information, visit:
[http://openstenoproject.org](http://openstenoproject.org)

~~~
dlau1
I'm not trying to be negative in any way, because this is awesome. I really
believe there are so many ways to interact with machines that we haven't
figured out yet.

But ... can't you achieve this level of efficiency, maybe even better with a
combination of auto completion and snippets?

With python and vim, I use jedi-vim[0] and neosnippet[1] for textmate
compatible snippet completion.

0 : [https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi-
vim](https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi-vim) 1 :
[https://github.com/Shougo/neosnippet.vim](https://github.com/Shougo/neosnippet.vim)

~~~
ploversteno
It would be cool to see a video demonstrating this using the same snippet of
code! If you decide to make one, let me know, and I'll link it on the Plover
blog.

------
arh68
Most people have no business using a pneumatic nail gun. No business at all.
You won't hang pictures any faster, and your doghouse will probably look the
same. Technically, everything done with a nail gun _could_ be done with a
hammer.

But if you didn't know what a nail gun was, never imagined the thing, could
you _imagine_ framing a 2-story house by hand? A large house might need teams
of arms & hammers. Dozens. You wouldn't even see construction as the same kind
of thing: more of a coordinated work of labor, like aisles of rowers on a
trireme.

If I can type so fast I can think out loud _into the machine_ , the flow
changes. It's likewise hard to argue how a REPL changes much anything, since
saving & recompiling is fast, but I think flow is rather important.

~~~
jared314
Great analogy, but i'm not sure it's accurate. Any kind of abstraction
(functions, interfaces, objects, macros, DSLs, frameworks) could be considered
a pneumatic nail gun.

Software development is built on layers of abstraction that directly allow one
human to frame a 2-story house, while typing very little. The amount of actual
machine code generated by a simple CRUD application can be massive. Optimizing
the raw typing is only useful when you have no control over the deeper
abstractions (like if you are stuck with C++).

------
charlieflowers
Amazing that Mirabai is able to think in terms of semantic words, most of
which can be entered in a single keystroke. If you're a programmer and you
don't want to watch the whole video, at least jump to 32:50 and to hear what
Mirabai's brain is thinking while coding. Very intriguing.

------
spyckie2
As someone who has always been fascinated with alternative typing systems and
shorthand, I took a look at Plover and Steno a couple of months ago. I bought
myself an NKRO Keyboard - haven't turned it into a permanent STENO keyboard
yet although I think that's the next step I should take if I want to be
serious.

It seems difficult, but after about a week, you can write a lot of things
without having to look them up in the STENO dictionary. The syllabic way of
spelling words is systematic enough that you can derive most words, and there
are multiple ways to spell something so most of your guesses are right.

Unfortunately, I think it will take (as said in the video) 3-6 months before I
can go at a normal pace, and words not in STENO are not so easy to deal with.
For any word not in the STENO dictionary, you either spell them out or
generate a new set of chords for that word. So the system grows on you as you
use it more and becomes more optimized and comfortable the longer you use it;
it just takes a long time for you to become comfortable.

Steno keyboards also don't have arrow keys or modifier keys so you have to
chord them out or remap all your shortcuts to things that make steno sense to
you - that's even more of a learning curve.

I still really want to learn it; it is something that I think pays dividends
after around 5 years or so. I would love to use it for stream of consciousness
writing or note taking/transcription. Not sure about programming since there
are so many tools (autocompletion, you can just write your own macros if you
really want to save keystrokes) to help speed you up.

~~~
DennisP
My impression from reading about steno is that a lot of the complexity in
steno systems comes from disambiguating similar-sounding words. Have you found
this to be the case?

If so I'm thinking predictive techniques could help.

~~~
spyckie2
While predictive techniques can help, you really want something that is
accurate 100% of the time so you don't have to keep an eye on your output. I'd
rather memorize two different chords to get 100% correctness on the I or eye
problem rather than 99% correctness on it with a predictive engine - the fact
that you have to keep track of what you're typing to catch its mistakes really
makes predictive techniques not so good for speed.

~~~
DennisP
That may depend on what you're using it for. But how often do you have to
memorize different chords like that?

~~~
morinted
I mean, you have to memorize different spellings when typing normally. In
Steno, I find that most homophone differentiators are given by spelling:

BAIR --> Bare (phonetic)

BAER --> Bear (spelling)

You do have a point, though, that predictive software could help. I just don't
don't know how I'd feel when it gets it wrong.

------
brunorsini
Love her passion and eloquence.

If Plover can effectively make Steno keyboards understandable by our OS of
choice... Should we start teaching our kids this thing _before_ they ever get
hooked into qwerty?

~~~
noonespecial
The qwerty keyboard isn't going anywhere because of its prime advantage. It
can be used when first encountered (albeit slowly) by someone who has never
used one before.

That said, I wish for a time machine so I could go back and give a Plover to
8yo me so that I could internalize it like only a child can. Then I could pull
it out, jam it into a USB port and type like a Jedi to the amazement of all in
the present day while spouting platitudes about an elegant keyboard from a
more civilized age...

------
toxik
Very nice! She is a very good speaker. I want to add two things:

1\. A gentleman at the end says he's learning Colemak and that he's forgotten
QWERTY as a cost. I type Dvorak every day, and I have to refute that claim!
Sure, Colemak is a lot closer to QWERTY but I have a hard time believing he
actually _forgot_ QWERTY. So don't worry about that, I encourage you to try a
different layout (and recommend Dvorak for its prevalence in the wild.)

2\. There is a second gentleman asking if this could be done for iPhone. Such
efforts are underway, I know there is some project at KTH doing this. It
doesn't really work all too well but it is a nice concept. Perhaps if you
could also properly see the screen while typing...

~~~
lportion
For anyone who has taken the time to learn Dvorak: From the point you began to
learn it, how long did it take to become more proficient at Dvorak than
QWERTY? How much more proficient do you consider yourself to be at typing as a
result?

~~~
arh68
Took about a year to work most of the mistakes out. Lots of typos. An
unimaginable amount of typos. I don't consider myself any more proficient.
Typing dvorak is a bit different: I type word by word, instead of letter by
letter. I still type on qwerty (who doesn't, at work?) but that feels more
like stringing together an infinite sequence of letters. Dvorak tends to make
words a bit easier to type in single fluid motions. So when I _actually_ start
typing fast in dvorak it gets crazy fast pretty quickly. Hence the typos.

It took at least a few years before I could type dvorak with just my right
hand, which is tricky _seeing_ the other letters when I'm staring at a qwerty
keyboard.

I regret nothing. (:

------
danbruc
While cool and useful if you have to write a lot quickly, I don't think it is
very helpful for programming - typing speed is just not the limiting factor
except in some rare cases.

~~~
pgt
My feeling is that the "tax" of typing slows down the flow of new ideas in the
same way round-trip latency places an upper limit on bandwidth. By this
reasoning I switched to Colemak on a Kinesis keyboard about a year ago and
have been happy with my choice despite the initial learning costs. Ergonomics
and a stable home row position are worthwhile benefits. I would like to try
Steno if it means I can spend less time typing or thinking about typing so I
can spend more time building stuff.

~~~
danbruc
What does it typically look like? One hour thinking, five minutes typing? Yes,
sometimes you have a sudden idea or insight and can't type it out as quickly
as you want, but that is not the common case.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Yeah, people's strange fetish with programming really fast (e.g. "I use Vi
because I can type faster in it, a mouse slows me down!") is completely out of
touch with how I program professionally day to day.

For most code that I write there is a modicum of research (e.g. online docs,
requirements, etc), some time spent thinking about how it should be laid out,
and a whole lot of frameworking (e.g. putting the code into the agreed upon
structures or interacting with the structures, which is often an internal
research stage also).

The only thing I can imagine trying to write really really fast, is someone
reproducing from memory various Computer Science 101 algorithms for funzies
(you'd always use standard libraries in prod' anyway). Aside from that
programming speed seems the opposite of how programming works.

Yet it is constantly talked out (e.g. "I purchased a $150 mechanical keyboard
to type code better," "I use Vi/emacs because a mouse/IDE slows me down," "I
code on the terminal because it has less distractions," etc).

~~~
DennisP
I thought the same thing until I learned Vim. It's not about typing faster,
it's about being able to make changes almost as fast as you think them up, and
staying in flow instead of getting bored and frustrated.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
You just ignored almost everything I said.

Writing raw code makes up a TINY proportion of what I do professionally day to
day. Writing long code in a single stretch (e.g. without researching, checking
other parts of the codebase) almost never ever happens (because code isn't
created in a vacuum).

Also I am well versed on Vi's functionality. I choose to use an IDE.

~~~
DennisP
Our experiences are different then. I spend a fair amount of my time actually
editing code.

------
pmoriarty
The speed of steno is mostly due to having a huge number of macros, which
chorded keyboards let you have a lot of. You could have a bunch of one-stroke
macros for full sentences, for instance. There's no way someone spelling out
words one letter at a time is going to be able to keep up with someone who can
type a one-stroke macro to type a long word or even a sentence.

But you don't have to use a steno keyboard or a pre-defined steno system to
type words phonetically nor to create macros. Both can be done on regular
keyboards (or any other kind of keyboard). However, it is nice to get a
keyboard that can chord more than 2 or 3 keys which most cheap keyboards are
limited to. The more keys a keyboard lets you chord, the more one-stroke
macros you can create.

------
jlhawn
Something which was particularly striking to me about this presentation was
how the steno input system seems very similar to the Korean alphabet and
writing system, Hangul [1], a phonetic writing system in which each syllable
is composed of a beginning consonant, a middle vowel, and an ending consonant.
Steno seems to have a very, very steep learning curve, but Hangul has been
around since the 15th century and is already used by over 50 million people.
While the steno 'chords' seem to have as many as 5-6+ keys pressed at the same
time, Hangul blocks are typically 2-3 characters. I've been learning Korean
for about a month and though I only know a handful of words, I find the
writing system easy to learn and use. While it doesn't allow for all
combinations of consonants and vowel sounds that exist in western languages
like English, with some modifications a hybrid writing/input system could be
made which may not be as powerful as steno, but is easier to use and learn
like Hangul, allows for all of the consonant and vowel sounds used by most
languages, and gets you most of the efficiency gains of stenotype.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul)

~~~
fsiefken
Yes, one could for example start by forking the ibus-hangul engine and adapt
it for english. Am I right that this is a similar aproach as the dutch
velotype system has?
[http://velotype.com/en/?Functioning_of_the_keyboard](http://velotype.com/en/?Functioning_of_the_keyboard)
[http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/split-stenograph-with-
num...](http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/split-stenograph-with-
numpad-t8432.html)

~~~
trishume
As the author of the forum posts you linked to: yes

Velotype also works on a start-vowels-end system, just with letters instead of
sounds.

~~~
fsiefken
great! i read your keys per stroke statistics overview. does this mean the
velotype is a superior system compared to plover as it appears to be just as
fast, easier to learn and without dictionary dependency?

------
canadev
That was really cool. Thanks for the link.

I liked the discussion of unicode/multilingual stuff (brief and inconclusive
though it was). Basically it sounded like if a language has a steno solution
then this could work for it.

I liked the demos and the going over of the chords that were typed in to make
the various outputs.

I liked the accessibility and efficiency side of things.

I really liked the conversational speech engine thing.

At first, I was a bit uncomfortable with how fast she was talking (it was very
rapid fire), but she even addressed that (in giving the same presentation
previously, she'd run out of time).

I liked the low cost aspect of it.

I thought her idea of a game (RPG or MUD) to learn how to type steno was
interesting. I looked at the project website
([http://plover.stenoknight.com/](http://plover.stenoknight.com/)) and didn't
see the game yet, so I am guessing nobody has taken up that torch yet.

I am skeptical about the keyboard as a long term input device, but I've been
using it for 25+ years now, and it doesn't seem to be going away just yet.

Here's a site with an n-key rollover test, which should tell you if your
keyboard will support this sort of stuff natively:
[http://www.gigahype.com/nkey-rollover-test-
page/](http://www.gigahype.com/nkey-rollover-test-page/)

I noticed that my keyboard supported, in some cases, up to 8 characters are a
time -- but if I tried to hold WASD all down at the same time, it failed. So I
guess it's not an n-key rollover supporting keyboard. (I vaguely remember
reading something about this and how the key switches are laid out in a grid
last year.)

I rarely seem to get problems with my fingers from typing, but one culprit is
Tetris (which I play for hours every week, not sure why I'm not sick of it
after so many years). It does cause some pain for me to play. I don't know if
this sort of thing would ever help with that, but I am not sure.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the description of the logo was pretty neat.

~~~
miahi
The game idea reminds me of The Typing of the Dead[1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead)

~~~
ploversteno
It was originally inspired by Typestriker, which I used quite a bit to get me
through my early days in steno school: [http://www.acid-
play.com/download/typestriker](http://www.acid-play.com/download/typestriker)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I think Z-Type would work great adapted for Plover. Heck, with Plover
installed, it'd be great now!

[http://phoboslab.org/ztype/](http://phoboslab.org/ztype/)

~~~
morinted
ZType doesn't accept input from Plover for some reason. Typing of the Dead
works fine though.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Odd, it's just a web game. Does Plover not support games?

~~~
ploversteno
Weird. You're right; it doesn't work. Must have something to do with the layer
Plover's using for keyboard output. That's frustrating. I'll bring it up with
the developers.

------
kanzure
Typing source code with Plover is possible, but so far there have been lots of
reports of unexpected whitespace. I think the ultimate test for plover is to
beat something like the 23 minutes 28 seconds qwerty record on
[http://www.ioccc.org/2013/cable3/cable3.c](http://www.ioccc.org/2013/cable3/cable3.c)
with less keystrokes overall. IOCCC can be seen as an absolute worst case
scenario for the sorts of code that might be encountered in day-to-day
programming. So if a somewhat experienced Plover user can handle IOCCC without
a problem, then programmers are in the clear.

[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/KJ2OcDqboCc/5iLn...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/KJ2OcDqboCc/5iLncrRLrqsJ)

[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/KJ2OcDqboCc/GPWU...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/KJ2OcDqboCc/GPWUpH9zFQMJ)

Meanwhile I have been working on reverse engineering the proprietary USB
protocol for the Elan Cybra steno machine...
[http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server1400/803d4/products/3527/i...](http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server1400/803d4/products/3527/images/3350/cybra1__94816.1410577774.1280.1280.jpg?c=2)

~~~
swalsh
I think its great that this might be used to help people with disabilities. It
doesn't seem great for programmers. There have been very few times where the
bottleneck in my productivity was how fast I can type text. I spend a lot more
time thinking.

The keyboard shortcut thing in vim is cool though.

~~~
kanzure
> It doesn't seem great for programmers.

Well, what would it take to make it great for programmers? My primary concern
at the moment is the excess whitespace it often adds after every keypress.
Exact typing is very important to me when I am writing code. Are there other
issues you're concerned about?

I think that ultimately everyone spends more time thinking than literally
anything else in the world, including qwerty typing, so "I spend more time
thinking" doesn't seem like a meaningful observation to make. Even a 1%
improvement in typing rate applied globally, across all forms of work that
might even trivially involve typing, can save millions of hours per year of
labor.

Wait, let's check. Assume 500 million qwerty typists. Assume an average of 10
minutes per day spent typing every day for a year by everyone. So a 1%
improvement would be 34,700 years of labor saved over a single year? Pretty
cool.

Edit: yeah so it occurs to me that I shouldn't estimate 500 million qwerty
users. Hmm. Maybe it would be better to estimate based on "75% of cellphone
users worldwide send text messages" multiplied by maybe uh 1.5 billion users.
So anyway, at least 1 billion typists (although not qwerty-specifically,
cellphone typing is dramatically slower, so is safe to use here).

------
lifeisstillgood
With my knuckles getting stiffer, this is a really attractive idea - I just
wish there were more obvious ways to get the stick on keys (cannot seem to
find the links)

Edit: did not mean to sound so miserable. I think this is a great project and
my plan before Xmas is to install it on a raspberry pi, buy or make the stick
on keyboard and use the RPi as a pass through keyboard at work - so I am less
dependant on each local hard disk

~~~
moreati
For anyone else looking. Plover is at
[http://plover.stenoknight.com/](http://plover.stenoknight.com/), which links
to the plover store for the keys [http://plover.deco-
craft.com/shop/view_product/Laser_Cut_Ste...](http://plover.deco-
craft.com/shop/view_product/Laser_Cut_Steno_Keys_Kit?n=2910988). They fit the
MS Sidewinder X4 (maybe others), which is available still.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Since there wasn't yet a Wikipedia page, I've started one:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plover_%28software%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plover_%28software%29)

~~~
ploversteno
Thanks very much! Plover also has its own Wiki:
[http://stenoknight.com/wiki/Main_Page](http://stenoknight.com/wiki/Main_Page)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'm sure you steno folk with your impressive WPMs must be pretty good wiki
editors :)

------
Jonovono
Does anyone know if the macbook air (13-inch, Mid 2013) supports n-key
rollever

I tried this link and it seems like I can press multiple keys at once:
[http://www.gigahype.com/nkey-rollover-test-
page/](http://www.gigahype.com/nkey-rollover-test-page/)

It looks like I get 6 keys so maybe that is not enough?

~~~
titanomachy
Did you try the advice on the page? Hold WASD and try every other key. On my
2014 macbook pro, even WASD by itself fails, so I'd be surprised if the Air is
any different.

~~~
onedognight
My MacBook Air can do 6 keys, but not any 6. They have to be horizontally
disbursed. In particular tight triangles are impossible (AWS, WSE, etc.) and
cannot be pressed at the same time. A fun site to use to see this for yourself
is [http://benzguo.com/bayan/](http://benzguo.com/bayan/) .

------
RevRal
I suppose this is a good place to ask.

Does anyone have a preferred system of shorthand? I've always wanted to learn
shorthand because my thoughts sometimes escape me when I am writing. I haven't
taken the step beyond choosing a shorthand system, so if anyone has a
preference would you mind sharing?

Thank you.

~~~
boken
Having tried Gregg and Pittman, I strongly prefer Gregg, in part because of
the ease of finding instructional and reading material in the public domain,
all the way to a complete transcription of Alice in Wonderland[1]. More
importantly, though, is that Gregg is--in the terms used by the marketers of
the system in the early 1900s--written and not drawn. It flows left-to-right
at least as easily as the Latin alphabet, and can be adapted to suit whatever
slant and curvature you typically write with in longhand. There was simply
less of a barrier for entry as far as getting the shape down on paper for me.

Be advised, however, that learning shorthand can take a tremendous amount of
time--at least to get "up to speed" at it. The system of strokes, hooks, and
loops is not in and of itself difficult to master; it's the profusion of brief
forms, detached endings, and so on that take a great deal of time to become
fluent at. Having used Gregg every day for the past six months, I can say that
I write and read with comfort, more or less--but I'm certainly not reading
mine or others' shorthand at the speed at which I can read longhand. And I'm
definitely not able to take dictation yet (not that I have need to), any more
than I could do so typing on a QWERTY keyboard.

(As quick but hopefully instructive examples, the form "AL" can mean "I will,"
"allow," "ail," or "ale"; an attached "F" at the end of a form can mean
"-ful", "-ify", or simply the sound "f"; there is nothing to distinguish the
prefixes "es-" and "ex-" except by what follows them; "pend," "pent," "gend,"
and "gent" all look precisely the same; and so do "nt" and "nd," "det" and
"ted," and "mem," "men," "min," "mim", and a handful of others.)

I've tried out Plover, and my experience with Gregg definitely made it more
approachable than I think it would have been otherwise. One of the advantages
it has over written shorthand, however, is that it is purely a writing, not a
written, system. There is no need to learn to read it.

That said, I find shorthand a joy--and it is vastly more portable than a full
QWERTY keyboard.

[1] [http://gregg.angelfishy.net/](http://gregg.angelfishy.net/) is a good
compendium for English-language Gregg. The "Anniversary Edition" has the most
texts. The "Simplified Edition" is a little more manageable in size, but is
much more recent and still under copyright in most markets.

------
epayne
Great talk! I am excited by the possibility of seeing Mirabai Knight launch a
Kickstarter campaign for a steno keyboard for programmers and other users.
Given the promise of typing 200 WPM comfortably I think many of us would pay a
premium for a new device and training software.

------
doorhammer
I'm wondering about the user specific dictionaries and whether or not adoption
would be aided by the communities trying to define sets of standard
dictionaries that seem to be particularly efficient and effective at different
tasks, like coding in brackets languages, or just general coding dictionaries.

If I tried to use it for something somewhat non standard and had to start
defining a lot of my own chords, I'd pretty quickly wonder if I was
handicapping myself by making bad choices in defining things. Might be that
I'd quickly realize it doesn't matter for whatever reason.

Looks really rad, either way.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
At work, in Lync (worst IM ever), email, and so forth, I just switched OSs and
I'm getting alot of irritation from the spell checker.

The sheer amount of jargon that it thinks are misspellings and tries to fix is
staggering. Dozens per day, at minimum.

I'm assuming _all_ of those would require custom definition. I can't seem
myself going through the hassle. And even if the job is done collectively, our
department has less than 50 people in it (maybe 70 if you include the data
center). It's not a big enough community for it to spread thin.

Steno seems like last century's solution to the problem, not this century's.

~~~
Jonovono
Ya, would be interesting to rethink it. Seems cool, but like the question
about using it on your phone. Since steno you need two hands you can't use it
on your phone (keyboards on your pockets? lol :) )

~~~
ploversteno
The Android app is actually pretty decent; you use it Swype-style, but rather
than employing Swype's predictive method, it's 100% deterministic, so you know
what you're going to get every time.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brentandjo...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brentandjody.stenoime&hl=en)

~~~
kragen
Neat! Is it proprietary, or could it be put on F-Droid? I don't use the Play
Store.

~~~
ploversteno
It's open source, but you'd have to ask the developer to send you an apk, I
think. Or compile your own, I guess:
[https://github.com/brentn/StenoIME](https://github.com/brentn/StenoIME)

~~~
kragen
Fantastic, thanks!

------
fsiefken
programming at the speed of thought; vim at 240 wpm
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-
dB6g#t=829](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g#t=829)

I wonder any of the Pycon 2013 participants try to learn plover and what their
experiences were, perhaps they even read this topic on HN?

I'm already very proficient at dvorak typing (with the regular vim bindings),
so I'm not sure if the 30% speed increase would justify taking 3 to 6 months
of learning this, it'd be cool for substituting your speech with a text to
speech engine, and with openeeg recognition one step closer to cyborghood.
It's also nice to just have the skill to transcribe human speech real time and
being able to apply for jobs in politics, justice or television. For example,
here's an interview with the dutch transcriber in Dutch parliament:
[http://www.intermediair.nl/carriere/een-baan-
vinden/beroepen...](http://www.intermediair.nl/carriere/een-baan-
vinden/beroepen-functies/stenograaf-bij-de-eerste-en-tweede-kamer-2400-euro-
bruto)

I wonder if the steno chording could be optimized significantly by rearranging
the keys and layout in a similar way as dvorak did with qwerty. Perhaps
T9/autoexpand with Linux can be just as fast, but it cannot be used blind, can
it? [http://code.google.com/p/autokey/](http://code.google.com/p/autokey/)
[https://github.com/shaaniqbal/T9-QWERTY/](https://github.com/shaaniqbal/T9-QWERTY/)

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dsego
How about this versus coding by voice?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI)

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tomjen3
Am I the only one who spends far more time thinking about what I am writing
than writing it?

I mean being able to type 240 wpm would be some bragging rights, but how would
it be useful?

~~~
Synaesthesia
I hear you, for a lot of writing I'm thinking more than typing. but it's
useful for transcription, also communication as you usually communicate quite
fluently and without too much thought, so I could benefit there.

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1ris
I still have not found any information on using it with other languages than
English.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
And for those of us that regularly type in more than one language, it seems
like we would need to learn one typing system per language， rather than using
a common system (qwerty) for all languages that use the Latin alphabet. This
appears to be a big drawback of steno.

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mwcampbell
It occurs to me that blind people who are proficient at writing braille would
likely be able to learn steno with relative ease, because they're already used
to routinely pressing several keys in one stroke (up to 8 at a time in 8-dot
computer braille). Also, braille has several contractions, including dot
combinations that don't map to single letters but to common two-letter
sequences like 'th' and 'st'. Steno, being syllabic, requires fewer keystrokes
per word than braille, but at least proficient braille users would already
have the dexterity and some of the concepts.

Edit: On a more software-related topic, the interaction between Plover and a
screen reader (assistive technology used by blind people) would be...
interesting, particularly if the user is using text-to-speech output rather
than a braille display. Plover simulates individual QWERTY keystrokes, and a
screen reader often speaks in response to keystrokes. So to take the example
of entering "Python", the screen reader would notice the backspaces produced
by the second steno keystroke and would try to speak the backspaced
characters, interrupting itself all along the way, before speaking the newly
constructed word (assuming the user has word echo enabled). The response to
the asterisk key would also be suboptimal. I don't know how best to solve
that. On Windows, the best solution would probably be an add-on module for the
open-source NVDA screen reader
([http://www.nvaccess.org/](http://www.nvaccess.org/)), which is in Python.

Edit 2: I belatedly remembered the correct answer to the above problem for
Windows. On Windows, Plover should be using the Text Services Framework as an
alternative to simulating keystrokes, where the TSF is available, which
includes Microsoft Word and standard edit controls. I guess I should implement
that.

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reledi
I never knew something like this was possible, very cool.

One (unrelated) part of the Q&A saddens me, the fallacy that an open source
project cannot be commercially successful:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-
dB6g#t=1200](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g#t=1200)

~~~
waldir
I had the same thought. For reference, an initiative to assemble companies who
reject that and other similar myths is undergoing at
[http://opencompany.org](http://opencompany.org)

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lotsofmangos
This is very cool, I've been thinking for a while of learning chorded
keyboards, and this stops me having to spend a fortune to do so.

From the title I must admit I was wondering if it was going to be something
like NASA's actual thought-to-text project -
[http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_04093_subvocal_s...](http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_04093_subvocal_speech.html)
\- It would be really cool if someone could make an open source version of
that in python.

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verroq
The really great idea is the portable low cost steno keyboard, maybe backed by
a Raspberry Pi. Just plug it in and you'd get your own customised input system
with all your personal configurations and dictionaries and what not.

Also since it's phonetic, I'd imagine it'd work great with Chinese in Pinyin
mode.

------
ploversteno
Also, here's a transcript of the PyCon video for people who don't have time to
watch it: [http://openstenoproject.org/transcripts/pycon-2013-video-
tra...](http://openstenoproject.org/transcripts/pycon-2013-video-
transcript.php)

------
thefreeman
Here is a link to the code. Couldn't seem to find it anywhere on the website.
[https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover](https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover)

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JD557
This seems interesting. I was going to install a steno keyboard on my phone to
try it out, but then I noticed that it might only work with english.

Does anyone know if this project supports other dictionaries/layouts?

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plg
A really good example of how to give a great talk.

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Noxchi
I was hoping this was a system that captured your thinking and put it as text
in the computer. That's something I want.

~~~
lotsofmangos
You want some myoelectric sensors in a collar bolted to some machine learning
libraries. The following links might be a good start.

[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11776](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11776)

[http://pybrain.org/](http://pybrain.org/)

[http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_04093_subvocal_s...](http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_04093_subvocal_speech.html)

