/tech/ - Technology★

How good is it for programming? I know it's awesome for writing but what about editing? Editing stuff is what you do most of the time when programming, but such few keys don't seem to offer a lot of room for all of the shortcuts one would use when editing text, and even if it does, I don't think it would leave enough free keys for other shortcuts one uses regularly, like launch terminal, window manager shortcuts, dmenu shit, all of the C-something or M-something you use in emacs, etc.

>>1058282

http://plover.stenoknight.com/2010/04/writing-and-coding-with-steno.html

here is a demo of coding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBBiri3CD6w

The steno order is: STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ (I think this is all the keys you can hit, plus # or numberline). So you can program a "chord" like "STKPW" to be "CTRL+W" or whatever key bindings you want for shortcuts, or different combinations for commonly used programming strokes.

To me the project needs more devs or a different dev team and just to be promoted to more people (someone fork it?). You can type 2-4x faster than touch typing it seems (depending on your typing speeds).

To me its lack of popularity currently seems to be just to lack of people knowing about it and network effect, and it also is a time investment to learn all the different abbreviations (like learning a language). I could only get up to 20-50WPM (as well as Colemak in that range) and can touch type QWERTY around 100WPM so I never fully switched to it, but could definitely feel like it was more ergonomic and less typing effort. I want to fully transition eventually or use it more but I imagine it will still need to grow in popularity to work out all the issues that could potentially come up that aren't thought about (the steno combinations were originally created for a stenography typewriter, so adding common computer keyboard combinations has been after the fact and if we were to start over from scratch we might arrange it differently, or it might be arranged differently over time).

Demo of typing at 179WPM with Plover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il8DT_alCLk

>>1058439

This is pretty cool, I've been thinking about things like this for a while, didn't realize that they already existed. I'm trying to understand how it works but it's not very intuitive. Does everyone create their own dictionary, or is there some sort of translation algortihm?

https://sites.google.com/site/ploverdoc/appendix-cheat-sheet

some of these briefs are pretty crazy lol:

>'someplace': SPHRAEUS

>'something': S-G

>'sometimes': STAOEUPLS

I like the fact that steno uses chords though because I play piano. I was wondering if I might be able to get my MIDI keyboard to work like a steno keyboard. That would be kind of cool. Imagine playing a vocaloid synth with a stenography keyboard lol.

>>1058454

Hey, it actually exists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfu-d93X2S4

so even more useless crap for people with too much money

Kinesis Advantage will always be the best ergoboard.

>>1058543

>How are you finding it?

I've been using it in class and albeit being a mechanical keyboard it has very quiet switches. The loudest part of using it is your fingers tapping the plastic keys. You don't have to bottom out the keys in order for them activate. It's a little weird at first but it's an interesting feeling just barely pressing down the key to have it activate. A very nice feature of the keyboard is that you can easily modify the firmware. I changed the firmware by implementing a hardware workman layout to it. Although I've been mainly using it in the regular keyboard mode since I don't currently have free time to practice steno, it is much better than using qwerty. First off, it has n key rollover. No longer do you have to spam a million times to type the word "again." It also helps that now the thumb keys are in an ergonomic place. It felt weird on qwerty to use the vowel keys with your thumbs. It also takes some getting used to the ortholinear layout. As you have probably already seen on the site, switching between regular and steno mode is very simple.

>>1058543

>how good it is for laying out code but is editing a pain

It is only going to be good for laying out code if you spend time making your own shorthands for language specific stuff and changing between different modes so it knows if it should be adding spaces and how it should handle capitalization. I've tried a couple times to write code with steno but not had much luck. It's something that you'll have to spend a while both setting up and learning. Editing is not much harder. On the topic of editing remember that you should be using the backspace chord for erasing stuff and the * key for when you want to undo a translation.

Anyways, it's the only keyboard I use now and I take it with me to uni too to use with my laptop / lab computers it's convenient to have a hardware workman layout as I suck at qwerty atm

>>1058454

>Does everyone create their own dictionary, or is there some sort of translation algorithm?

There is a main dictionary for the Plover project based on steno theory and the adaptations of one of the dev team users. The dictionary is a long JSON file that matches a chord like "STPH" to some output (I forget, maybe like a word like "staff"; "STOP" is in order and would output "STOP" I think). The chords are based off of steno theory which is phoentic I think, so once you know some of the rules you can guess and often figure out the word. I'm going from memory after not doing this for a while but I think like "STEUBG" would be "stick", "EU" often becomes "i" and "BG" is used for "k" endings. To do long words or phrases, the program can recognize and replace multiple chords in a row.

>some of these briefs are pretty crazy

Yeah, that's what made me hesitate a bit. I think that chording is a great idea, but I didn't want to have to learn this outdated language that was created for physical steno typewriters. But it seems like an imperfect improvement on touch typing so it's really "good enough" for now. I think the future might be able to rearrange everything to be much more efficient.

You're also tied down to one language kind of as well (English, versus like Spanish or German).

>>1058550

Keyboards could end up being cheaper and taking up less space eventually.

here was another attempt at a chorded keyboard arrangement: https://sites.google.com/site/ploverdoc/kinglet-a-letter-based-stenotype-system

and another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velotype

and another: http://www.openstenoproject.org/palantype/tutorial/2016/08/21/learn-palantype.html

I thought there was a japanese shorthand keyboard but couldn't find it but found these pics also: http://stenosearch.com/_connect/international_shorthand_keyboards.htm

tapping keyboard concept: https://www.tapwithus.com/

penti chorded keyboard (I think you can download like on android?): https://software-lab.de/penti.html

>>1058764

>There is a main dictionary for the Plover project based on steno theory and the adaptations of one of the dev team users.

She is more of the project leader than a developer. Before creating the project she already used steno and was a contractor offering services for realtime transcription. The software she had to use then were proprietary, bloated, and limited in what they could do. That's why she wanted someone to create a piece of software like plover.

>I didn't want to have to learn this outdated language that was created for physical steno typewriters

What do you have against the layout? It's not like with typewriters where they had the limition of spreading out keys so it wouldn't jam. Steno machines did not have this limitation. This is because each key was given a designated location as opposed to a type writer always trying to hit the same location. The problems of the physical machine are things like not having an undo and being more strict on the way you do the chord. Obviously they are not realtime, you have to go back and translate all the shorthand to the actual transcription.

>You're also tied down to one language kind of as well (English, versus like Spanish or German).

Though you can finger type words if you need to.

>>1058764

that would be nice but usually the reality is that you pay more for less. like with $100 you get a keyboard that has less keys and no letters on them but with $10 you can get a keyboard that has all the normal keys and has the letters on the keys.

>>1058282

>How good is it for programming?

It's better for programming than writing since programming languages have a smaller vocabulary and simpler syntax than natural languages.

>>1058264 (OP)

Kudos to Op, I discovered Plover and the realm of stenography thanks to you. Writing this at a snail's pace but learning the ropes for a while now.

Typing like this can be relieving to my brittle fingers, given I know the cords, as long as they don't use too many keys also.

I don't recommend diving too deep into this rabbithole without a suitable keyboard for the task. My mx browns are way too heavy for prolonged (and speedy) cording. On the lookout for a 40% ortho type affair myself. Fits palan layout and is a functional miniature keyboard otherwise.

The software is in its infancy with regard to translation behavior, it breaks when you tamper with the form content. Maybe it is just impossibly to integrate better?