14 ms·
A different kind of keyboard
- spindle 5y agoIf you want to make your own arpeggios to use with a normal keyboard (I do), I recommend kmonad: https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad
- adamquek 5y agoThat's quite interesting. But if I were to learn chording, I'd rather invest on a stenograph keyboard and learn plover. There's a bigger community and more resources to rely on.
- b3n 5y agoThis is explicitly not a chorded keyboard.
- funnybeam 5y agoG Heavy Industries - the maker of the keyboard used in the article - also makes a keyboard specifically for plover if you are interested. (not involved in the company, just a happy customer) https://www.gboards.ca/ https://www.gboards.ca/
- high_5 5y agoJust a sidenote, use of chording keyboard in computing is as old as the mouse: allen-riley.com/internetstenography/chorded_keyboard_engelbart.jpg
- gjvc 5y agoThe use of neologisms such as "because math" in the middle of this piece do have the effect of dumbing-down and trivialising this guy's amazing work.
- avodonosov 5y agoI use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase on my phone and tablet. Pretty convenient. Wanted to use https://software-lab.de/penti.html https://software-lab.de/penti.html but have difficulty learning all the chords.
- bowmessage 5y ago> Pretty coovenient. the irony of the typo in your comment is not lost :)
- avodonosov 5y agoLol. I make a lot of typos on regular keyboard as well.
- andreareina 5y agoOh man I remember ME from when I had my Palm V, it was such an improvement. I think these days swipe input on querty has got it beat, at least for words that are in the dictionary. A one-touch way to switch between the standard keyboard for swipe and ME for the rest would be killer.
- avodonosov 5y agoHaven't heard of swipe (or swype) before, maybe I will try, thanks.
- justusthane 5y agoAndroid and iOS both have it built in these days. For Android you may have to install the Gboard keyboard.
- avodonosov 5y agoTrying swype now. On first impression I would not say it's more convenient than Message Ease. Maybe I need to get used ťo it, will keep it for some more time.
- funnybeam 5y agoI love how honest this is about the limitations and the whole design process. Truly a great example of a real hacker project I have a Georgi keyboard (mentioned in the article) which I started getting to grips with then put aside during a way too busy period at work. This has made me want to dig it out and try again. I’m also thinking that two of those faunchpads put together on the long edges could make an even better ‘back of phone’ keyboard (or back of mini tablet) for a handy portable note taking device
- laurent92 5y agoSure, but if you have a few keys to press, why not go all the way and make it a Braille keyboard? It would teach sight-able people how to write braille.
- tsimionescu 5y ago> It would teach sight-able people how to write braille. Is this an interesting goal? I absolutely understand why it would be extremely valuable for most people to know their local sign language for communication with those who can't hear, but I fail to see how wider learning of a very special writing system (one that anyway can't be currently read from electronic devices) would impact the sight-impaired community.
- jhy 5y agoThere are definitely electronic Braille reading devices. They're called refreshable braille displays, and are often also combined with a specialized keyboard. Wider adoption could conceivably improve these interfaces through more users and commercial interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display
- alisonkisk 5y agoThat doesn't read Braille. It reads digital data and writes Braille.
- germ 5y agoI swear FaunchPad has seen 3 Or 4 different input methods like this be developed, I'm not sure what it is about the hardware but I'm absolutely in love with what you all do with it. Nice write-up OP! Excited to see where you go with Peggi :)
- puzzlingcaptcha 5y agoI remember that a couple years ago Motorola was pushing its Moto Mods - hardware extensions you could clip at the back on your phone. I always thought that a Mod for alternate input (like this, or chorded/braille) would be very neat. Unfortunately looks like it never picked up.
- o40 5y agoBraille input exists on apple phones: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210066 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210066 and I think Android supports something similar.
- puzzlingcaptcha 5y agoOf course, but you generally need to hold the phone with the screen facing down (as you are supposedly hard of seeing, e.g. https://youtu.be/wueLXCbm_KY?t=45 https://youtu.be/wueLXCbm_KY?t=45). Here you could have a touchscreen or tactile buttons seamlessly integrated on the back of the device.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoOwning a moto Z phone, I was looking forward for this. Unfortunately, they never came with a real product. I love typing on a hardware keyboard, I once owned an HTC Desire Z phone, which had a hardware keyboard and it was pretty great. Too bad nothing viable with a keyboard appeared since that time.
- FullyFunctional 5y agoThis is a very interesting idea, but the hardware could be improved to better fit a phone and use battery+blutooth. If someone were to offer this [say, on Tindie] I would totally buy it. (Unfortunately the ;+A didn't work on Safari for me on an M1 MacBook Air).
- vedosity 5y agoThe page seems to assume that semicolon's keyCode is 59 so the modifier key in the demo only works with Firefox according to this table on MDN[0]. The keyCode for semicolon varies not only by keyboard layout but also by browser. Mine is 186. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEvent/keyCode https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEve...
- ianthehenry 5y agoHey, thanks! TIL. Indeed, I only tested Firefox.
- ggm 5y agoI used a microwriter in around '85. It was kind-of cool. Took more time to invest in than I was willing to give for a non-standard input device, but it definitely worked.
- laumars 5y agoThis reminds me of how we used to type on pre-smart phone era phones. Eg https://phonesdata.com/files/models/Nokia-E51-807.jpg https://phonesdata.com/files/models/Nokia-E51-807.jpg The funny thing with those little handsets was, with a bit practice you could actually get very quick at typing. Quicker even than on QWERTY keyboards on touch screen phones (at least you had tactile buttons).
- lelandfe 5y agoTypically this was T9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text) I still miss being able to compose messages in my pocket...
- laumars 5y agoI had no idea it was a named technology, though I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Thanks for sharing that link.
- Kiro 5y agoSpeed typers did not use T9. A friend of mine used to compete in texting.
- least 5y agoThis isn't surprising given that T9 is predictive and a typing contest would probably not coincide with your typical typing habits, though I am very skeptical that typing by pressing successive numbers on a number pad is faster than T9 for general texting purposes, at least after you've trained it. Perhaps I'm underestimating the speed of which these people could press buttons in succession, just it seems like depending on the word you're pressing significantly more buttons to type the same thing.
- skohan 5y agoBut was that because it was bad or because it was slow on those old microprocessors? T9 would fly on a modern smartphone chip
- Fatboyrunning 5y agoCool article! If you haven't come across Doug Engelbart yet, I highly recommend it. He invented the mouse (yes, that mouse), and was a staunch believer in chorded keyboards. I'll admit, though, I don't really get it.
- dotancohen 5y agoThis is terrific. As a VIM user, not Emacs, I love the idea of a chording keyboard but just cannot get the hang if it. The arpeggio idea is perfect. I just bought the hardware recommended in the fine article, let's see how that build goes!
- doomrobo 5y agoFor anyone looking, you can already use a chorded keyboard on your iPhone. It has Braille input available through accessibility settings https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210066 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210066
- jcun4128 5y agoI remember seeing a demo of that (Braille keyboard on a phone) was crazy. What's also neat is the StuffMadeHere guy on YT added vision to that via Lidar in an iPad... the vibrations(?)/raising pins fed into a similar brail keyboard position.
- aasasd 5y agoPossibly this demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wueLXCbm_KY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wueLXCbm_KY
- deanclatworthy 5y agoIf you want to see an example of this taken to the extreme then check out Olafur Arnalds semi accompanying piano. It plays along with him using a lot of music theory to create generational music in real time on the same piano: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630111211/one-key-many-notes-lafur-arnalds-piano-rig-fuses-technology-and-musicality https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630111211/one-key-many-notes-... I tried to create something similar using web audio and a midi piano a while ago but the reason this works is you are applying digital processing to analogue output, along with Ólafur being one of the most talented composers alive at the moment.
- diplodocusaur 5y agoI'd love to see a progression of typing speed over time. That's the real test. I believe this idea can have potential for breaking the world record because there is no finger-to-key travel. But maybe it is diminished by the having to press a key multiple times over to get to the target just like in old cellphones [0]. Alternatively maybe one could brute force the problem of optimal keyboard layout/etc using simulations. Like that robot (human) hand that solves rubik's cubes by learning through simulation (apparently, from OpenAI [1]). [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Telephone-keypad2.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Telephon... [1] https://openai.com/blog/solving-rubiks-cube/ https://openai.com/blog/solving-rubiks-cube/
- jonsen 5y agoWay back when paying a stack of bills at the postoffice the clerk was adding numbers at a breathtaking speed on a mechanical calculator. I've often had the thought, why not write by typing ASCII codes on a numeric keypad?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- diplodocusaur 5y ago[2] https://i.imgur.com/XcCbOsB.png https://i.imgur.com/XcCbOsB.png quick infographic of the bottleneck
- daliusd 5y agoHere is chorded example https://artsey.io/ https://artsey.io/ (in case you have not seen one). People claim that you can reach 50 wpm with chords. I may play with that in the future but I do not even try using chords on my 34 keys keyboard. I have tried but that does't work for me.
- sudcha 5y agoThis is fascinating! It definitely needs more iterations, but once the learning curve is achieved, something that uses 8 fingers. vs. 2 thumbs is going to be far more productive. Good post, but even better design thinking and execution. Thanks for sharing, and good luck on next steps!
- bodge5000 5y agoI've always thought it was a bit odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen. Sure, everyone knows how to use it and its fine for early smartphones, but it seems like a really terrible place for a full keyboard to go; imagine using a keyboard the size of your phone keyboard (so about the third the size of your phone itself) for your desktop or laptop. It'd seem insane and impossible to use on a daily basis. You see the same thing with games. Not so great game designers just copy whats on PC for mobile, and add load of virtual buttons all over the screen. Phones are no good for that, really you want to limit yourself to 3 buttons at any one time at the maximum. If this could be learned fairly easily, it could be the solution I've been looking for. Of course it won't replace on screen keyboards for everyone, we're too far gone now, but at least there'll be something better availible
- Al-Khwarizmi 5y agoI was quite surprised when I went to China and looked at people texting with their phones, wondering how many keys they would need in their touchscreen keyboard, and finding out that most of them use... 9. The classic pre-smartphone phone keyboard, where you write in pinyin and the corresponding Chinese characters get predicted.
- kalleboo 5y agoThe most common input method on Japanese smartphones is also a 12-key keyboard modeled after feature phones, since it has the lucky coincidence that it maps onto the Japanese phonetic system perfectly - あかさたなはまやらわ+modifiers. On feature phones you had to multi-tap to get from あ to い to う, but on a touchscreen they added "flicking" into different directions to jump directly to a character. Once you get used to it, you can get really fast at it! Animated demonstration: https://media.giphy.com/media/gjOWCOlhd98wI4dYcd/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/gjOWCOlhd98wI4dYcd/giphy.gif
- girvo 5y agoMy favourite mobile-device keyboard was that of the Sony Ericsson M600i/P1i https://www.cnet.com/a/img/oje2OkhPIKnnKkJDXCAYnXJBst0=/1200x630/2010/10/21/69f5c1d5-cc2e-11e2-9a4a-0291187b029a/sony-ericsson-m600i_4.jpg https://www.cnet.com/a/img/oje2OkhPIKnnKkJDXCAYnXJBst0=/1200... Its a rocker-key design: hit the left side, Q, right side, W. The U-shaped key made it super easy to hit the right letter, I could type amazingly quickly on this janky phone from 2006. Once the capacitive-touch revolution happened, the closest keyboard that really took advantage of the small-screens was the TouchPal T+ keyboard. It was similar, in that one soft key was Q and W, but you pressed it and swiped left or right for each key, and up and left for capital versions. It also held special characters with a swipe down. This also worked really well, in my opinion, especially on the small screened devices we used to use. This is all a long winded way of saying, I agree, I think straight QWERTY is still odd, even today!
- riofoxx 5y agoI can help you earn $ 6.0,0.0.0 with $ 5.0.0.0 in a w.e.e.k t.h.r.o.u.g.h M.R h.a r.l.a.n.d. w.h.o h.e.l.p.e.d m.e g.e.t the b.e.s.t in c.r.y.p.t.o t.r.a.d.i.n.g.. Contact information via WhatsApp +13052395906)
- drath 5y agoReminds me of http://octodon.mobi/ http://octodon.mobi/ keyboard. They went through so many many design iterations, tried really hard to get it going, but failed to start production and haven't posted anything since 2017. Guess typing on a phone will remain a pain forever.
- lbj 5y agoA replacement for mouse/keyboard has been on my wishlist for a long long time. I'd happily accept a steep learning curve to reduce it to something that could be controlled with a couple of fingers. This guys on the right path I think, and big props for taking it as far as he has done.
- dom111 5y agoI'm really keen on things like this. I love (in theory at least) the concept of being able to work from literally anywhere, and the concept of some sort of smart display (glasses, lenses, etc) but having a physical keyboard to type out code is always a major barrier. Something like this starts to edge towards that vision which is cool. I wonder as well if there's a way to have some sort of bracelet (but probably something less comfortable) that can track the way your hands move, so you'd be able to just "type" normally with your hands (eventually with less actual movement and more intent I suppose) to make use of these wearable displays. No idea how feasible it is, but it feels like it is! One day I'll be able to work whilst walking around in the forest... One day!
- diplodocusaur 5y agowithin reach https://aplot.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_3162-711x1024.jpg https://aplot.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_3162-711x10...
- V-2 5y ago"One day I'll be able to work whilst walking around in the forest..." To be frank, this sounds thoroughly dystopian to me
- wizzwizz4 5y agoHow about “one day I'll be able to walk around in the forest while working”?
- boomskats 5y agoI'm a Blackberry fanboy. My Key2 was far, far superior a device to the latest gen iPhone I own. I have tried for years to get used to glass, and while I'm ok with it, it's still a massive compromise. My second favourite mobile-device keyboard was that of the Ericsson T28 [0] from about 20 years ago. At some point I accidentally discovered a feature I just found outlined at the bottom of page 28 of the T28 user manual [1], where the volume rocker switch on the left side would act as a text entry modifier key, so that pressing the number 2 button normally resulted in a B, holding the volume up and pressing 2 gave a C, and holding volume down and pressing 2 gave a D. I remember getting so, so fast and so comfortable at texting with this method. By random chance, an acquaintance a few years ago in a co-working place had an old T28 that still worked and let me play with. Naturally the first thing I tried was the old input method - and it was like my muscle memory never left. I was so fast and so comfortable with it. She was blown away... after 20 years she still had no idea that that mode existed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_T28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_T28 [1] https://www.lokety.com/ericsson_t28s_manual.pdf https://www.lokety.com/ericsson_t28s_manual.pdf
- reaperducer 5y agopressing the number 2 button normally resulted in a B, holding the volume up and pressing 2 gave a C, and holding volume down and pressing 2 gave a D The SonyEricsson M600 series had something similar. The keys were rockers. Press the left side of a key and it was an Q. Press the right side and it was a W. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Sony_Ericsson_M600.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Sony_Eri... Interesting to use, and I wrote a lot of text on it while on buses and trains. But the keys were necessarily very hard and so your fingers would hurt after a while.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoSaw something like this in 2011 on Yandex demo day in Yekaterinburg. Didn't fly then. Can't find the link, unfortunately.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoOh, it was called Octodon, thanks to people posting it in the comments.
- bandie91 5y agoit reminds me the FrogPad keyboard
- RBerenguel 5y agoI got a Ginni [0] like… 2 years ago, and set it up as a chorded keyboard. I've had diagramming the layout (based on Colemak, and trying to follow some kind of "real layout logic") as a pending task for these two years, I may have even lost the source code files but have a pencil-and-paper diagram hanging on my corkboard. It's a fun gimmick, and surprisingly easier to use (for non-coding) than expected. [0]: https://www.gboards.ca/product/ginni
- msk-lywenn 5y agoWith its touch back panel, this is the virtual keyboard the PS Vita has always been waiting for.
- jrockway 5y agoI really like this. I hate moving my fingers off of home row, and have a bunch of "layers" to put more keys on home row (extra thumb keys on the opposite hand define what; for example, I have ({}) on jkl;). I hadn't had the idea to "arpeggio", or to optimize normal letters, but now that seems really appealing to me. (I tried the demo and I love it.) What's nice about having the full keyboard is that you can keep normal keybindings and just not use them when you're feeling lazy. I'll have to play with this more, it's a really good idea.
- mlang23 5y agoiOS actually has a multi-touch based braille keyboard built-in. So you can have a rather similar behaviour, however, without extra hardware, with native iOS. In Settings > Accessiblity > VoiceOver, add "Braille keyboard" to the rotor options, and then use two fingers in a circular motion until you hear "Braille input". You can now hold the screen away from you in landscape mode, and use three fingers from each hand to type 6-dot braille.
- aasasd 5y agoA demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wueLXCbm_KY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wueLXCbm_KY
- mlang23 5y agoOh sweet, thanks for digging that up!
- mstade 5y agoThat's mesmerizing to watch – thanks for sharing!
- aasasd 5y agoYep—I'm a bit of an interface junkie myself, and I get an unscratchable itch whenever I hear how Iphones have some magic haptics where I could grope the screen in search of the buttons and actually feel them, or something like that. Especially when PS Vita has a rear touch pad, on which extra functions are mapped in some games—and I can't tell which areas have the mappings, resulting in me either pressing the areas accidentally with my grownup hands, or missing them when they're needed. Or when Apple adds the touchbar instead of keyboard buttons, with none of that magic.
- macNchz 5y agoThanks for the link, super interesting to watch. Over the years as a programmer I've picked up knowledge about web accessibility from a mechanical, standards/implementation focused point of view, but this video is helping me realize that my understanding has been lacking a level of depth and empathy for the real people using these tools. Looking through some of her other videos I found this demonstration of camera-to-speech in the iPhone pretty awesome–I had no idea that this was a feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CAafjodkyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CAafjodkyE
- CarVac 5y agoMy favorite phone input method by far is MessagEase, with which you don't need autocorrect. I've gotten pretty fast with it too.
- MattRix 5y agoI felt like autocorrect on regular mobile keyboards on both Android and iOS was actually slowing me down. I kept having to correct the corrections, so I turned autocorrect off a couple years ago. It ended up being way better, now I can type faster (~80 wpm) and can write exactly what I want.
- Syzygies 5y agoCalculus teaches us the nature of optima. Sometimes they're at one extreme. Sometimes the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. This is one extreme. The sweet spot is in the middle, using tap/hold keys on a more conventional keyboard as supported by QMK firmware. It's brilliant to keep your fingers near home row. It's dogmatic to not have the other keys even be there, or to force yourself to use one hand if you have two. A finger of one hand holds a key to select a mode, a finger on the other hand taps a key using that mode. This mode selection layout should be mirror images for the two hands. The Matias one-handed keyboard established beyond a doubt that our brains are wired to support this. I use custom modes for punctuation, exotic "control-xylophone" editor commands, and controlling my computer. And yes, a cat walking across my keyboard will rearrange the orbits of the planets. However, the decades I spent thrashing would have been all worth it just to realize I shouldn't have to reach so far from home row for shift and modifier keys.
- ExtraE 5y agoI mean, this isn’t intended as a serious input method to compete with your full size sit down keyboard. It’s for on-the-go.
- aendruk 5y agoTo add to this, KMonad can give you these “QMK”-style tap/hold keys on your laptop keyboard too: https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad For example, you can put shift keys under your pinky fingers: (defsrc a ;) (deflayer main (tap-hold-next-release 300 a sft) (tap-hold-next-release 300 ; sft)) It’s implemented as a virtual hardware device so compared to other methods of remapping keys it’s fairly well supported across applications.
- Arubis 5y agoOh, this is neat. Using Spacemacs for a while has inadvertantly pre-sold me on the concept of arpeggiated input.
- intpx 5y agoHoly Baader-Meinhof Batman! Just yesterday I had the idea for a phonecase that had a few buttons on the back-- nothing so specific as a chordic keyboard, more for things like a camera shutter button and some other macros. I even started roughing out a schematic. The FaunchPad looks sort of ill suited for the task because its wired but there are some good BLE SoCs out there now that can sip power.
- jokoon 5y agoI used to be anti touch screen for typing, until I learned how to use swipe typing. I think I type much faster on a touch keyboard with swipe... I wonder if there are benchmark for swipe versus normal keyboard...
- neogodless 5y agoI used to ~~take~~ really liked swipe based typing, but it seems to me it has gotten much worse ~~I've~~ over the years. My favorite was ~~in~~ on Windows Phone.
- egypturnash 5y agoThis reminds me a lot of the "Mirrorwalk" layout for the Twiddler chording keyboard: https://forum.tekgear.com/t/mirrorwalk-config-the-walking-layout/195 https://forum.tekgear.com/t/mirrorwalk-config-the-walking-la... Each letter is a two-button chord, but in practice, each letter is an arpeggio because the Twiddler only sends a key event when you release a button. The layout is designed so that when writing English, there is a very high probability that the second button you press for a letter will be the first button you press for the next letter, so you can keep that button held down, press the second button, then release the first button to send the next letter. Your first three fingers (it doesn't use the pinky row) will "walk" around the three rows of the Twiddler. This is kind of making me want to pull out my Twiddler again, I really haven't used it since I gave up on trying to run Illustrator on a Surface tablet instead of a Mac laptop.
- amosj 5y agoThat's an awesome layout, I will have to try it. I actually have two twiddlers - the dream was to split the layout between the two, so that all letters would have easy 2-button chords and to achieve a higher wpm. It works fairly well but I never practiced enough to really make it productive... might have to try that mirrorwalk layout though
- ruffrey 5y agoI applaud any effort to rethink keyboards from first principles. After years of shoulder, neck and back pain I discovered that the root cause was the standard keyboard design. It causes rounded shoulders. Perhaps my shoulders are just too wide. This pinched all sorts of muscles, tendons and nerves. Doctors and physical therapists just failed to identify the issue. Weight lifting didn't help all that much, even with a strong back I had to scrunch and round the shoulders to type. I finally picked up a second keyboard, and used one for each hand. It was surprisingly easy to convert to. Just added some larger rubber nub things on home row. It's been life changing. Years of pain was gone in days. No special design necessary. Each keyboard is arranged at an outward angle, distanced so my shoulders are in a natural position. I can't recommend this enough. On Mac it required a system preference tweak (Karibiner app) so each keyboard can share shortcut keys.
- smallpipe 5y agoAre you aware of split keyboards? I use a mistel barrocco (essentially two normal keyboard halves tied together with a USB cable) and j can’t recommend it enough
- ruffrey 5y agoThanks, yep, tried a few but am too addicted to the chiclet style.
- tomcam 5y ago> am too addicted to the chiclet style You sick bastard. Seriously, though, it's most cool that you came up with such a simple solution. Hat's off, and glad you got that pain under control. I started using a keyboard heavily around 40 years ago and knew from carpal tunnel problems as a pianist that I'd have to be careful. My kids love to joke that my posture looks like it's from an ergonomics manual, but no carpal tunnel since 1982! (I'm saying my approach is better than yours or would have helped, just empathizing because I would be super miserable if programming caused physical pain.)
- goodpoint 5y ago
- biryani_chicken 5y agoThere's this really interesting (touchscreen) keyboard for android called 8vim in which you write by drawing circular shapes. I can attain a decent speed after using it for 30 minutes but haven't really kept it on for long: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/inc.flide.vi8/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/inc.flide.vi8/ It's actually a clone of another keyboard, 8pen, which was abandoned. Here's a video of how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99vsUF4NuLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99vsUF4NuLk
- jamesfe 5y agoI'm not sure I understand - it took me 28 keystrokes to type 13 characters. The value must come from somewhere, where is it?