Big English Michela Dictionary

Harri writes:

Starts with Sillabix, a stenographer in the Italian courts using Michela 🎹 theory.

They created resources on how to use Michela theory for writing English here.

Now over to me, where I have coded these rules into Froj to automate about 90,000 words (each word has about 10 outlines/briefs) so English Michela has a base dictionary!

Now onto Notnotwrong who has whipped out their keyboard (🎹 this kind) and has begun the undertaking of learning this theory. Using FrojBot to explain outlines, with Sillabix correcting any mistakes it gives 😅.

I believe it took about a week to reach a promising 20wpm.

Michela was designed to be somewhat universal, so it's great to see this revived, here's the original English Michela back from 1882!

Asterisk + Capacitive Keypads = ???

JonJon had the idea. This is Peter's implementation. I'm certainly intrigued. Would this improve my haptic feedback on the Asterisk and noticeably increase my speed? Hm! Might be worth a try.

Javelin's Host Layouts Enable Fully Scriptable Unicode Handling

Javelin's Host Layouts now enable fully scriptable unicode handling. If you've ever wanted to steno with full unicode in Microsoft Word, or emacs (that each have their own unique unicode input methods), this is now possible. All of the default host layouts have been updated and uploaded to github.

Since rebuilding an entire firmware to test a script change would be extremely time consuming, there is a new web tool to update host layouts.

This requires a firmware of 2025-07-12 or later.

Plover 5.0.0.dev3

Plover 5.0.0.dev3

Warning: Version 5 updates the graphical interface library from PyQt5 to PySide6 which requires graphical plugins to be migrated.

v5.0.0.dev3 (2025-07-14)

Features

Core

• Allow higher priority dictionaries to delete entries from others. (#1160)
• Improve orthography rules for ^ify suffixes. (#1680)
• Reduce installer file size. (#1741)

Linux

• Add dvorak keymap support for uinput users. (#1746)

Bugfixes

Core

• Allow uninstall of installed unsupported plugins. (#1739)
• Fix missing font family warnings. (#1740)

Windows

• Do not consider extended scan codes in Windows keyboard capture. (#1357)

Improved Screen Reader Experience on Typey Type

Improved screen reader experience on Typey Type

I just published a change to Typey Type that should improve the experience for people using screen readers. It removes announcements of completed words that were occurring at the same time as the next word for VoiceOver users. A range of other tweaks should make the main text area and other parts easier to use for all screen readers. Please let me know if you have feedback!

There are new sections on the about page about the speak words setting and using screen readers.

I expect the changes will make no difference to people who aren't using screen readers but as always please let me know about any bugs that sneak in.

Go here for feedback.

Silent Switches and Javelin for the Ecosteno

Nolltronics now has a version of the Ecosteno that works with silent switches and supports Javelin!

Silent switches – We’re now making a version of the Ecosteno that has 20g Ambients Nocturnal Silent switches! While they aren’t completely silent, they are significantly quieter than the standard Pro Pink switches we’ve been using.

Javelin – While we’ve had this for a few months now, this is the first announcement we’ve made for it. We’ve moved to the RP2040 processor with extra storage which lets our new Ecostenos and Multistenos work with Javelin! This will allow you to store steno dictionaries to your keyboard, allowing you to plug it into any computer and start typing natively with steno. Note that we’re still shipping our boards with QMK, but the Javelin firmware builder makes flashing Javelin easy if you decide to do so.

Lighter springs – We’ve also had this for a while now, but haven’t formally announced it! Our standard and silent switches are rated at 20g of activation force, but if you’re ready to do some DIY work, you can bring that down to 12g with some SPRiT Kailh Choc 12g Springs! You will have to remove your keycaps and pop open your keyswitches, but once you do, you’ll be rewarded with the lightest keyswitches available anywhere!

Another Walkaround Gig

I got to use my Jarne to caption at a museum yesterday!