
Touch Typing on a Gamepad - krisfris
https://darkshadow.io/2020/07/07/touch-typing-on-a-gamepad.html
======
nyx_
A little over a decade ago now, back when the Sony PSP was current, there was
a neat little homebrew IM client called AFKIM. It used bitlbee to connect to
various IM services (AIM, GTalk, MSN, etc.) and worked pretty well for
something running on a PSP.

The keyboard, though, was great:

[http://localhost.geek.nz/afkim/docs/usingafkim.html](http://localhost.geek.nz/afkim/docs/usingafkim.html)

It's a 3x3 matrix. You use the analog stick to pick a square, then hit one of
the face buttons to enter a character. Left and right shoulder buttons shifted
the keyboard to uppercase, numbers, specials, etc.

IIRC it was a Lua module that any PSP homebrewer could drop into their
application for a pretty decent OSK.

~~~
osener
That looks very similar to MessagEase keyboard available for Android and iOS.
It is pretty cool, I was an avid user when I had an Android phone and I was
barely making any typos. It’s very customizable and I particularly enjoyed
clipboard integration. On iPhone third party keyboards don’t work as good so I
had to stop using it.

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fbrchps
Unfortunately I can't find a direct reference on any Valve official channels,
but I'd say that typing on a Steam Controller is quite good; I'd even go so
far to say that it's going to be hard to beat it for keyboard input on a
controller.

Anecdotally, most people hated the Steam Controller's touchpads, and I'll
admit I wasn't a fan at first either. But the ability to remap them to be:
sticks, trackballs, d-pads, bring up (multi-level) radial menus, etc. is an
absolutely killer feature.

I think one of the reasons they "failed" is because they absolutely were not
plug-and-play, because to truly utilize their full capabilities, you had to
configure them per game.

~~~
ClikeX
As someone who actually enjoys tinkering with these settings. I grew to love
the controllers quite quickly. But it's exactly as you said.

Steam Controllers are not plug-and-play. They're really a niche thing.

I was able to set up a reasonable competetive setup for Metal Gear Online. I
had the left pad for walking. Then set up the right one with extremely
sensitive camera control, so I could turn around really quickly. But
configured it in such a way that it slowed down a bit when I pressed down the
aim button. After which I also enabled gyro controls for fine-aiming.

For Fallout 4 it was a more casual layout. But here I made the right trigger
hipfire if you fully pressed it immediately. But a half-press would go into
iron-sights first, while also enabling gyro aiming. This felt really intuitive
for me.

~~~
cruano
>Steam Controllers are not plug-and-play

I gotta say, for old games I had already played it was a great experience
since I knew what I wanted to configure and how. However, new games were a
pain since I was still trying to figure everything out

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wccrawford
I think all the "optimization" was a mistake. Instead of optimizing for the
most-used keys, I think it's better to optimize to make it easy to remember.

Phone typing was easy to learn because the letters were both predictable
(alphabetical) and because you could look at the letters when you forgot,
especially while learning.

Since looking at the keys isn't possible here, I think it's even more
important that being able to predict the locations of letters is possible and
easy.

~~~
slacka
T9 was amazing. Any upcoming human interface industrial engineer ought to
study it. When driving or in class, I used to regularly send SMS messages
without looking at my phone’s screen. It was THE biggest thing I missed when I
got my first iPhone 3G.

Only recently have Google's and Apple's TTS come close to matching it.
Occasionally I still miss T9 like when in a movie theater where I can't speak
to type and don't want to look at my screen.

~~~
anchpop
I'm a bit of a keyboard maniac. I don't know why I am this way, but I am. On
my computer I have a lovely split mechanical keyboard which I've remapped to
Colemak, but I've always wished I could get a good typing experience on my
phone.

I like being able to type while walking and without looking, and by far the
best phone keyboard for that is 8pen [0]. A masterclass in innovative UX imo,
and clearly a ton of work went into it. Unfortunately, they pulled it from the
play store (and deleted all the tweets on their twitter) some years ago for
reasons unknown to me.

Related is MessageEase [1], which is not as good but still passable. But it's
incredibly ugly and takes up a ton of space on my screen, so I don't like to
use it.

[0]: [http://www.8pen.com/](http://www.8pen.com/)

[1]:
[https://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php](https://www.exideas.com/ME/index.php)

~~~
transfire
8pen was definitely the most interesting/promising alternative input methods
I've ever seen.

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bitwize
So basically, typing via Street Fighter moves.

Feh. Everybody knows Real Programmers type by manipulating the locations of
specific koopa troopas so that when the glitch is triggered, exactly what they
intended to type will be written into memory.

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needle0
As someone with RSI-strained fingers, there's no way I am concentrating all
fingers' worth of input movement into just my two thumbs. Sounds like a recipe
for carpal tunnel/tendinitis/miscellaneous other flavors of RSI.

~~~
krisfris
You do have to be careful and stop when symptoms occur especially in the
beginning but I believe the issue can be avoided. The key is to stay relaxed
and focus on minimizing mistakes rather than trying to type very fast from the
get-go. Typing with this system is actually not that different from playing a
console game.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
So I guess the question is, do people who play LOTS of console games (e.g.
professional streamers) get RSI?

~~~
krisfris
Some do but as with RSI from keyboard/mouse usage it affects everyone
differently. One thing they usually have in common is excessive repetition for
example by constantly using shortcuts with CTRL. While practicing typing (both
keyboard and gamepad) I noticed that highly repetitive lessons with lots of
text like "jf jf jf fj fj fj jfjfjfj" cause much more strain than lessons with
more realistic text. In the end it all comes down to responsible usage,
nothing is completely safe.

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tosh
A chorded keyboard would also map well to gamepads

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard)

~~~
krisfris
Good idea, I will give it a try!

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causality0
I was a bit disappointed at how limited the linked Gamasutra's article was.
For example, it didn't even mention helical keyboards that arrange letters and
numbers into a 3D helix that allows very fast character selection. For
example, when you can immediately see that the character you need is one and a
half loops away ending on the 3 o'clock position, twirling your analog stick
to that position takes a fraction of a second.

~~~
imtringued
You mean this type of keyboard?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euquOpUmUyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euquOpUmUyk)
I had so much fun playing beyond good and evil on the PS2!

It's not the best but it is both easy and fun to use so if you want to avoid
frustrating your players it may be the safest choice.

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dgellow
I would be interested to see a video of the article author using this system.
It's a bit difficult to understand how it works without visuals.

~~~
krisfris
Good point! I will add a video soon.

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vanderZwan
> _Whenever one of the sticks left the center by crosssing the threshold, an
> input sequence was started. As soon as both sticks were back in the center
> within the threshold, the sequence was considered completed and transformed
> into a pair of tuples that described the movement of the sticks._

I wonder if it was easier in practice to move both sticks simultaneously, or
one after the other and then release them simultaneously. Because the
currently most commonly accepted psychological model two-handedness[0] would
suggest the latter, and that you start with your off-hand and finish with your
main hand.

[0] [http://cogprints.org/625/](http://cogprints.org/625/) _Asymmetric
Division of Labor in Human Skilled Bimanual Action: The Kinematic Chain as a
Model_

~~~
krisfris
Indeed, when entering combined inputs one by one starting with my off-hand my
accuracy was higher and I found myself using that technique occasionally
during practice, especially when I had made a mistake and needed to repeat an
input. However, as my speed increased, eventually I tended to move the sticks
simultaneously.

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wartijn_
Cool idea, but wouldn't it make sense to remove the letter J from the most
used letters?

If you don't use that letter for Vim it drops from the top 8 all the way to
the bottom of the frequency chart (assuming you only type English). If you
than map whatever J does in Vim to a more frequently used letter your typing
speed should go up.

Alternatively since J seems to be used mostly for navigation (not sure, I
don't use Vim) use the d-pad to do that instead.

\---

> After I upgraded my gamepad to the DualShock4, I realized I could make
> diagonal inputs relatively accurately. Integrating diagonal inputs would
> reduce the number of more complex inputs required thus increasing speed.

Any plans to do that?

~~~
krisfris
You're right of course about removing the letter j from the most used letters.
My strategy is to continue logging the inputs made with this system and adjust
the mapping as frequencies change. If I indeed use the d-pad more often than j
when using this system, the letter j will eventually be flagged for remapping.
By making only one adjustment at a time the relearning effort is manageable.

As for diagonal inputs, I've actually done it and I'm still experimenting with
it. I can accurately target 8 sectors when there is no dialing involved but
with dialing I would stick to 4. I think a hybrid system that allows for 8
sectors but switches to 4 when I start rotating the stick would be the best of
both.

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AtlasBarfed
Single hand chording inputs are supposed to best touch typing, I'm surprised
they can't do similar things with the gamepad and its shoulder buttons and
other inputs.

~~~
egypturnash
Yeah, I was kind of really surprised to see this instead of a chording system.

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llimos
Reminds me of the chorded keyset from Doug Engelbart (inventor of the
mouse)[1]

The idea of simultaneously using a mouse with the right hand and keyboard with
the left is intriguing.

[1]:
[https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/273/309/](https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/273/309/)

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gmb2k1
There is actually a gamepad-type keyboard as a real product. It doesn't work
with gestures but with dedicated buttons. From the looks of it, you can type
pretty fast on it, too.

It's called AlphaGrip [http://www.alphagrips.com/](http://www.alphagrips.com/)

Never used one, though.

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fuball63
This reminds me of the orbitouch, which is a keyless keyboard for people with
disabilities. It works by having one stick chose a subset of letters, and the
other to letter within that subset.
[https://orbitouch.com/](https://orbitouch.com/)

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zouhair
Nice, but I still don't know why Dasher[0] didn't get more "mainstream"?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_\(software\))

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ryukafalz
This seems like it could be really useful for text entry in VR! Using a
keyboard is impractical in that scenario, but you typically are holding two
controllers with joysticks. A system like this could make VR workspaces more
practical.

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smilekzs
Reminds me of Hadouken and Shoryuken moves :)

[https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Hadoken](https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Hadoken)

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rijoja
Selfless plug. Have been obsessing over this for a few years.

Do not hesitate to contact me via contact form if you share this passion and
or wants to take it further.

tbf-rnd.life/

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dirtyid
Are there any usable 1 handed typing systems out there? I just want an media
remote with a touchpad+trigger and T9 input.

~~~
Yen
For a traditional style remote, held in a pointing grasp with thumb on top, I
have a hard time imagining something much better than a T9 layout.

Personally, I'm kind of enamored with the idea of a phone or tablet for media
selection & control.

On touchscreen based devices, I'm a big fan of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase).

When I started looking into alternative text entry for a phone, the big thing
I was looking for was the ability to completely disable predictive text entry.
Messagease allows for that - I'm able to input text quickly, accurately, and
without the use of predictive input.

I've used it while holding my phone in either hand and using the thumb of that
same hand (though it works better in my dominant hand). I've also used while
holding the phone in my non-dominant hand and using the index finger of my
dominant hand.

I can _almost_ , but not quite, use it without looking.

So, if you're thinking of a custom remote project to scratch that itch, that
layout may provide inspiration.

~~~
Jolter
Looks like it’s patented? That might inhibit use a lot.

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tekkiweb
I did not get your idea! Explain me please

~~~
aethertron
Which part of the article confused you?

